Arlene Sharp is a contemporary painter based in London. In 2023, she graduated with a BA (Hons) Painting from the Open College of the Arts and was nominated for the New Blood Emerging Art prize.

Inspired by nature, particularly landscape, her painting practice explores the space, colour, and light encountered in a particular place and reflects her personal experience within it. Inspired by local areas such as the woodland near her home, as well as travels further afield, her semi-abstract paintings are built in layers using paint and mixed media. Using acrylics, inks, and painted paper collage, as well as drawing materials such as charcoal and pastel, the paintings gradually evolve, often becoming more abstract in the process: ‘My paintings may move away from a realistic representation but are always grounded in the truth as I see it.’

‘Playing with concepts of 'space' and 'place', Open College of the Arts 2023 graduate and New Blood Emerging Art Prize nominee Arlene Sharp's canvases explore familiarity and abstraction through bold use of colour and natural forms. Intrigued by our relationship with nature and natural landscapes, Arlene's work reflects an experience of space that goes beyond the plane of physical reality to encompass experience, memory and perception. By translating thoughts and experiences into visual form, these semi-abstract works ask how the process of painting can help us to truly notice a space, and inhabit it in a more meaningful way.’
(New Blood Art, 2023)