Dear friend in art,
If you’ve found your way here, you’re someone who sees beyond the surface — someone drawn not just to beauty, but to meaning.
This is the story behind the work. Not the formal biography, but the path — winding and quiet — that brought me to where I am, and to what I paint.
I share it with you not to explain, but to connect. Because beauty, at its heart, is shared presence.
Warmly,
my story
A Journey of Stillness, Beauty, and Belonging
My path to becoming an artist was never linear. Before I picked up a brush, I was seeking something — not a career, but a feeling: of calm, of presence, of beauty chosen with intention. A sense of sanctuary in a world that too often moves too fast.
I’ve always believed that what we surround ourselves with shapes how we feel — that beauty, in its quietest and most intentional form, is not decorative but essential. Painting became the way I could make that belief visible.
A Life Shaped by Light and Stillness
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in a world that prized intellect and achievement. My early career followed suit — a business degree, a specialisation in marketing, and years spent trying to balance creativity within a structured world. But the noise of that world left me hollow. I wasn’t seeking more productivity. I was longing for presence.
Even then, I lived by a quiet philosophy: fewer things, but better chosen. Beauty not for show, but for soul. That was something I inherited — from my British-Italian heritage, from my mother and grandmother’s intuitive elegance, and from the cultivated spaces I encountered on childhood trips to Europe.
The gardens of Roedean School, where I was educated in South Africa — the sister school to Roedean in Brighton — were especially formative. Walking daily through their rose garden, past a plaque that read: “We walk this way but once. Let us beautify the path we go,” I began to understand beauty as an ethos. One I would carry with me for life.
Though my early creativity found quiet form in floral arrangements, interior styling and intentional living, it wasn’t until my children were older that I turned toward painting. When I finally picked up a brush at forty, it felt less like a beginning — and more like a return.
The Turning Point
Painting offered something I hadn’t realised I needed — a place to rest my attention. A slow practice of light and presence. A way to witness beauty as it emerges — without rushing, without force.
I decided to train in classical realism under a master artist, refining the technical skills I now use with restraint and intention. My process is quiet, slow, meticulous. I study how light moves through a petal; I wait for the right moment — and the right colour — to reveal itself. These are not just habits of craft, but habits of being.
Stillness, subtlety, and emotional depth are at the heart of everything I create.
A Return to the Source
In 2023, my family and I left Cape Town and moved to the English countryside — settling in the Cotswolds, not far from Bath. It was a long-held dream, shaped by childhood visits and a deep-rooted sense of belonging.
Here, among the hedgerows and rolling hills, I feel more at home than I ever have.
The flora, fauna, and softened light of this landscape move me daily. I walk the same lanes I once read about in childhood — from The Secret Garden to The Wind in the Willows — and now, I paint them. Not literally, but emotionally. I paint what they gave me: stillness, beauty, and emotional resonance.
The Work and the Why
I create contemporary realist floral paintings — visual meditations on light, memory, and presence. Crafted slowly and with care, they are built to last — and made to matter.
My work has been exhibited internationally and recognised by institutions including the Art Renewal Centre and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, where Emergence (Sakura II) was selected for the Open Exhibition at London’s Mall Galleries in 2024.
But what matters most to me is not where the work is seen — it’s what it evokes in the viewer. These paintings are not created to impress, but to encourage a moment of pause and relaxation. To offer a quiet moment of sanctuary in a beautifully chaotic world. For those who feel deeply. For those who want their homes to hold presence. For those who understand that art can be more than decoration — it can be a companion.
Though I work with stillness in the studio, those who meet me in person quickly discover another layer: a warmth, a vividness, a slightly mischievous sense of humour. I bring an expressive openness to every conversation — and that balance of contemplation and connection is woven into every canvas.
If my work speaks to something in you, I would be honoured for it to become part of your home and your rhythm.
With gratitude,
Trish Mitchell