Rosemary Abrahams (Born 1945) studied printmaking and painting at Leeds College of Art during the 1960s. She studied alongside John French who later became her husband and business partner. The couple set up a design studio which grew and had a worldwide client base. Their network extended and this led to work in many countries, designing for a wide variety of fashion and home products including jute products in Bangladesh, hand made rugs in Nepal, carpets in USA, ceramics in Europe, and many more. Painting ran in parallel with her journeys abroad and influenced the textures and colors. In the 1990s they returned to North Yorkshire and latter to Bridlington on the East Coast in early 2000. Her paintings have been influenced by living in the countryside, with the changing colors and landscape through the seasons.
The varying depth of texture and colors are a great inspiration to her. Rosemary has always been intrigued by the differences in surface texture and how paint can be affected by it. The application of pearlescant paint, acrylics and metal foils further enriches the surfaces. She begins with a plaster ground which she can then incise to create line work. Her paintings come in 4 genres: seascape, abstract, landscape, and floral. Floral painting allows her to use a wider color range and freer forms bringing to it a degree of abstraction. She’s inspired by abstract constructions, dramatic, largely uninhabited landscapes, and loose organic florals. Her paintings are produced on a wide range of canvasses from intimate pieces no more than 20cm square to two meters plus.
