Short Biography
Miranda Boulton (b. 1973) is a contemporary British painter who lives in Cambridge with a studio in London. She studied Art History at Sheffield Hallam University and at Turps Banana Art School in London.
Her work has been shown internationally at Art Miami (Miami Basel Week) and Expo Chicago, group shows include Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2016 & 2019), ING Discerning Eye (2019 & 2021), Young Masters Autumn Exhibition & Invitational at the Exhibitionist Hotel (2022-24), and ‘Staged Nature’, Glyndebourne (2023). In 2021 she won the Jacksons Painting Prize. She had her first solo exhibition ‘Ghosts and Flowers’ with Cynthia Corbett Gallery in London, October 2024.
She is a member of Contemporary British Painting and has paintings in many private collections in UK, Europe and USA.
Art Statement
My practise expressively reinterprets the genre of floral still life painting. I reference the traditions of still life painting and abstraction within my mix of vigorous, raw and delicate marks.
From my first encounter at a young age in my grandfathers painting studio, I have been fascinated by the genre of floral still life painting. Historically still life painting has been seen as the lowest genre, thought of as slight and feminine. I explore, challenge and subvert these assumptions, viewing the genre as iconic and a powerful reflection of its time. I do not think of my paintings as gendered, my flowers have strength and muscle, they are untethered, I see them as living organisms in a state of becoming.
I start by working directly onto the canvas recalling memories of floral still life paintings. Painters such as Henri Fantin-Latour, Edouard Manet, Winifred Nicholson, Rachel Ruysch, Mary Moser and Giorgio Morandi fuse with Joan Snyder and Gerhard Richter to name a few.
My mark making reflects this internal stream of recollection, fragmented memories of paintings surface and flow together, large fast gestural sweeps sit next to quiet fragile areas of defined painting and slow layers of built up impasto paint. As I paint intuition and spontaneity takeover, past and present collide and the work writes its own narrative. The floral form becomes a conduit to explore gesture, rhythm, colour and sensation through the materiality of paint.
Click here to listen to Miranda’s Podcast Interview: ‘A Geography of Colour’.
Graham Crowley talks about ‘Night Echoes II’.
‘Silent Disco 25’, curated by Graham Crowley, July 25.