Everything Moves

I prefer to be out where I paint, feeling the movement in the space and interpreting this with oil and cold wax, with my fingers and various tools, traditional and improvised, sometimes picking up sand from the beach and mixing it in. Life rarely comes through enough if I use photographs so I go with the weather and tides, bundled up against the cold and sheltering from the wind in nooks, or barefoot in the water and sweltering in the sun on those rare days. At the end of the day I bring the painting home and continue outside if I can, or in my attic studio if I can’t, allowing weeks or months to finish, preferring to continue from memory or by holding on to a feeling from those moments.

I don’t work in any one style, my plein air work changes with the changing moods of the days and seasons so that each painting is a unique response to my surroundings. When the weather is unsuitable for painting outside I still get out there to see and feel the elements, then come back in to my attic studio and I paint from what’s inside me, again interpreting a mood with no restrictions in style, naturally evolving a range of finished work. I hope people come to my paintings with emotion and find a strong sense of place. Everything moves, so I try to capture that as I bring in the music of sea and the breeze.

I grew up in the unusual setting of Whiteway Colony, studied art at Stroud College of Art and then obtained first class honours in Illustration at the University of Wales Swansea College of Art. Moving from digital art to now focussing on oil paintings, I usually walk or cycle out to the locations from where I live in a little wooden chalet on Gower with my husband and stepson.

I use only top quality oil paints, most of which are made in South Wales using traditional methods by Michael Harding. I mix these with cold wax medium, and various other dry mediums such as pure pigment, opening up a range of interesting and expressive techniques. I varnish with a coat of wax for a velvety, protective finish.

Before I started exhibiting my oil paintings I was an award winning freelance digital illustrator, commissioned since 2008 for fine art prints, posters, book covers, calendars and many more. My work was sold under licence, worldwide and through over 1,000 UK high street shops (mostly independents). Several million greetings cards were sold through this period but I didn’t exhibit my oil paintings because they were my private practice and artistic release into places that I really wanted to be, creating without commercial constraints for my own therapy. I continue to paint that way.

My friend (ceramicist Esther Ley) suggested I show my oil paintings to Tim at Tides Fine Art, and from my first sale there in 2024 I have never looked back. My paintings are now in private collections worldwide, from Kansas to a Schloss in Berlin, from The Orkney Islands to Australia.

Solo and duo exhibitions
Oriel Mimosa Gallery, June - July 2026
Cwm Ivy Court, March - April 2026

Group exhibitions
Fresh Art Cheltenham, April 2026
Land and Sea, Tides Fine Art Mumbles, August - September 2025
Come As You Really Are, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, February 2025
BEEP Painting Prize, School of Art, Aberystwyth, January - April 2025
BEEP Painting Prize, Elysium Gallery, November - December 2024

Open Studios
Gower Open Studios, July 2025
Gower Open Studios, July 2026

Permanent representation
Claire Lily Coxon | Oriel Mimosa
Claire Lily Coxon | Park Gallery Cheltenham
Tides Fine Art Gallery, Uplands, Swansea