Nina Archer is an abstract painter, living and working in the south Shropshire hills. Following a career in graphic design she moved to Shropshire from Sussex a few years ago and began painting full time from her studio which overlooks the borderlands of the Welsh Marches.

The work is very much about her experience of this landscape. She spends a lot of time walking and observing the immediate environment, absorbing elements of the landscape that are important to her – the textural layering from land cultivation, the linear forms, the shape and contour of the land, the darkness and contrast of the forested valleys, the accents of colour and the changing weather patterns. It is her personal response to the landscape, her line of sight.

She works building up multiple layers with palette knife and then sanding, scoring and erasing the surface. The textural detail and colour is used as a contrast, to focus or balance the composition and although the textures and colours are broadly from the landscape they are not used in any representational way. She likes the idea that there are areas in the painting that may look flat from afar but when you examine them closely there is much more going on – the surface has been reworked and is often highly textured.