IRENE BRIERTON
PROFILE

Irene Brierton SWA. HS.

Derbyshire artist Irene Brierton, well known for her work with badgers, specialises in detailed watercolours of British wildlife.

Irene began to develop her natural talent and enthusiasm for drawing and painting after leaving work in the Art Room of Denby Pottery in order to raise her family, choosing her childhood passion for natural history as her subject matter. Her paintings were soon being exhibited in galleries around Derbyshire. She then began to seek a wider audience for her work.

In 1987 following exhibitions with the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour (RI) and the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) in London Irene was invited to become a member of the prestigious Society of Women Artists. She exhibited with the SWA at the Westminster Gallery for the first time in 1988.

In the same year she took part in a BBC Wildlife series where Simon King introduced her, as a wildlife artist, to the art of badger watching. She later pursued this new found interest eventually being elected Chair of the newly formed Mid Derbyshire Badger Group.

Now also a Council member of the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust her profile as a keen amateur naturalist, with a special depth of knowledge about badgers, has been raised over recent years through many interviews given on local and national TV and radio.

Irene regularly gives talks on badgers and on her work as an artist to many different organisations, schools, colleges and art groups (see contact page).

However her paintings remain the greatest passion in her life. She delights in her time spent patiently observing her subjects out in the countryside. It is that, coupled with her mastery of technique, that enables her, back in the studio, to depict her birds and animals so beautifully, sometimes in their natural habitat, other times as a more contemporary image, a study of the individual, capturing a moment in time.

Irene works mainly in large but also in miniature format. Her miniatures are exhibited with the Hilliard Society, of which she is a member, in Wells, Somerset and also annually in a specialist exhibition of miniature paintings at Llewellyn Alexander (Fine Paintings Ltd) 124-126 The Cut, Waterloo, London. (Opposite the Old Vic Theatre)

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