Trained at the Edinburgh College of Art and at Charles H. Cecil Studios, Louisa Risch is an active and thriving portrait painter. She balances this commercial side of her artistic practice with her still life paintings, which are the focus of this HELD STILL exhibition. Created in the privacy of her home studio they are thoughtful meditations on the effects of light over objects and the possibilities of oil paint to describe them. After carefully considering the props, composition and lighting of each still life she attacks the subject at speed in the alla prima style (wet paint on wet paint), a rapid technique that requires great confidence with the medium. In a recent interview with The World of Interiors she describes this process:

‘My painting style switches between two polar opposites: for portraits, I am meticulous, and it takes time to get it right. I look to the Old Masters for painting techniques. For still lifes and landscape painting, you have to work faster to catch the light – the paint is applied faster and you have to think on your feet. However, in all my designs, I am looking at the passage of light – whether that’s down a face, on a silver pot or where it catches the leaves on a tree.’