SHEILA MARKHAM

Sheila Markham lives and paints on the island of Praslin, where she creates lyrical semi-abstract compositions in response to her immediate environment. Sea, sky and tropical forest dominate these exceptional paintings, which explore and exploit a restricted palette and create a defined and recognisable sense of place.

 

Sheila trained in the United Kingdon under, amongst others, Howard Hodgkin and Gillian Ayres. After gaining experience as a graphic designer in South Africa in the early 1970's Sheila focused on teaching art and creating her own work.

 

Sheila's exhibition resumé reflects the great care and time her work takes to reach a realised state. She has had one person shows at the Seychelles National Gallery and the Alliance Francais Victoria. Her most recent (and very successful) solo show was held in 2019 at the Eden Art Space Gallery.

 

The genesis of each painting from which her limited edition prints are derived is one of sustained encounter with the land, sea and sky, laid out in panoramic splendour above, below and before the artist's home, perched on the side of one of Praslin's mountains and overlooking first sloping tropical gardens and, further, the ever-changing ocean. Sheila claims that the works deliver 'no earth shattering themes, they are about home, view and vegetation. They are simply current time expressions of memory’ .