Profile

After graduating from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, I started and ran a mohair weaving workshop in Lesotho for six years. In 1971 my family and I moved to London where I studied under Cecil Collins as well as attending life drawing at the Royal College of Art and The Prince's Trust. From 2008 I have been studying with Robin Child at his Art Research Centre in Devon, and more recently at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland.

I have accompanied my husband on his many trips to different parts of Africa, where I painted and drew the African landscape and people. This culminated in a series of desert landscapes which were exhibited in Guildford and London.

I have as both aspiration and inspiration the spontaneity found in the drawings of very young children. They are concentrated and direct, paradoxically and uncannily ‘accurate’ in what they convey and totally unselfconscious. But failing that ideal my work is underpinned by the tensions and dualities that exist between figuration and abstraction. I am searching for what I can only describe as ‘another reality’ below the surface of the everyday perceptions of a figure, still life or landscape. The painting may refer to a memory, or be a recollection of a piece of music or poetry. And sometimes it is simply playing with the endless possibilities of line, colour, form and medium on the two-dimensional surface.

Exhibiting at:

Art in June – www.artinjune.org

Nadia Waterfield Fine Art – www.nadiawaterfieldfineart.com

SEOS (South East Open Studios) – www.seos-art.org

SVAF (Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum) at The Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery – www.svaf.co.uk

Curriculum Vitae

Margaret Devitt, B.A. Fine Arts (Rand)

2021

2020–2021

2021

2019

2018, 2019

2018

2018–2021

2016–2020

2018

2017

2014–2017

2017–2020

2016, 2018, 2019

2015, 2018

2015

2014–2016

2003, 2006, 2009–2019

2012

2011, 2019

2010

2001

2000

2000–2017

2000–2002

1998

1997

1994

1994, 2001

1993

1992

1991, 1992, 1994, 2000

1991

1989–1990

1987

1986

1984 –1986

1987–1993

1982–1986

1981–1983

1979

1969

'More more than’ online exhibition with SVAF

Nadia Waterfield

South East Open Studios

Cello Factory, London, SVAF 10th anniversary exhibition

PrintFest7, Algarden, Sweden with SVAF

Sevenoaks Visual Arts Forum Open, Kaleidoscope Gallery

Seal Chart Etchers

Art in June

Cricket Fine Art

Cranbrook Art Show

Forton Fine Art

Smallhythe Studio

Llewellyn Alexander, London

British Art Portfolio

Chelsea Art Society Annual Open

Lustre 15, Lustre 18 Old Big School Gallery

Affordable Art Fair, London

Florum

KPG (Kent Painters Group)

Moncrieff Bray Gallery, Petworth

Portico Gallery, Sevenoaks

Battle Contemporary Art Fair

Rosvik Gallery, Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire

Royal London Society for the Blind, Sevenoaks

Clock House Gallery, Tonbridge

A.T. Kearney, London. Explorations: Out of this World

South East Open Studios

Atrium Gallery, London with London College of Printing

Lewis Elton Gallery, Guildford

West Kent Open Studios

Katima Mulilo, Namibia

St Mary’s Centenary Exhibition, Johannesburg

Bank Street Gallery, Sevenoaks

Central Library, Tunbridge Wells

Hays Wharf Galleria, London

Stag Theatre, Sevenoaks

St Julians, Sevenoaks

Mall Galleries, London

Church Gallery, London

Guys Hospital

St Julians, Sevenoaks

Guild of Kent Artists, Tonbridge

Bank Street Gallery

Sloane Square Tiles, London

Hugh Goffe, Sevenoaks

Old Fire Engine House, Ely

Hope Mill Gallery, Goudhurst

British Council Lesotho