Arleen and Her Work
Arleen is a mixed media textile artist creating fine art framed and unframed originals and hand finished stitched and embellished prints and greeting cards.
She has always been inspired by nature and this is reflected in her work. Seascapes , landscapes, woodlands and flowers are always to be found in her collection. They have a real sense of light and movement and reflect this beautiful country which has been her home for the past 30 years.
Arleen has now moved to the East Midlands, near Newark, having lived in the Chilterns in Oxfordshire for the last 16 years with her husband Simon (who also works on the business), and it is in these places that have generated a lot of inspiration for her work, in particular the Flowers and Woodlands.
Arleen was born in Jamaica and came to the UK at age 19, she is self-taught as an artist and has been painting from a very early age. The colours she was exposed to in her early years in the Caribbean, influences the tones she uses, and her work is often described as being sunny and up lifting with a strong sense of depth, drawing you into the paintings.
After working in the IT industry for many years, in 2008 after several years studying embroidery part time and selling her work, Arleen decided to become a full time artist, and at the time started exhibiting at National Art and Craft Shows. Previously she had spent 6 years training in both modern and traditional embroidery and holds a City and Guild Diploma Part I and II in Textiles and Embroidery. She also hold a City and Guilds certificates in both Fashion and in Teaching.
Arleen’s work is a combination of media built slowly in layers, acrylic paints, oils, pastels, often tiny pieces of fabric are attached using free motion machine embroidery to produce a final unique piece. More recently she has started working in a variety of mediums and painting methods.
Arleen also produces enhanced stitched prints for the textile work and these are art prints of her work that she enhances with free motion machine embroidery and then hand finishes with paint and acrylic gels. She also produces a range of conventional prints for her painted work together with a range of greetings cards. New for 2020 she is producing a range of houseware products based on her work.
She was featured on ITV Meridian, and they filmed her both in her studio and out on location in the Chilterns.