Georgia Wild (b. 1970)

Artist Statement

"I am a fine artist living and working on the edge of the Peak District in Buxton, Derbyshire. I studied fine art in Liverpool and at the Royal Academy Schools in London in the 1990s.

Wherever I have settled, the landscape and the journeys I take have filtered through into my artwork, whether in painting, printmaking, or ceramics.

Influences and Inspiration

Growing up in Burslem, the heart of the Potteries during the 70s and 80s, industrial decline created abandoned spaces between sites of industry where nature, however short-lived, was taking over. As a child, these wild places on the fringes were to be explored, dug, climbed, and journeyed through and have left an indelible impression. It has become a recurring theme throughout my artwork, wherever my location.

Now living and working in the Peak District, I have true wilderness on my doorstep, yet this thread endures. I may be overawed by the drama of the desolate moorlands or stunned by the beauty of the sweeping White Peak with its ancient hilltop coppices and plunging dales—yet it is often the 'in-between' places which draw me in.

Lime industries have carved great scars into the Peak District and remain largely invisible to the casual tourist. But zoom in on Google Earth and it becomes apparent how vast the quarries of modern industries are. Older, abandoned lime works have a haunting beauty of their own with their unnatural contours and strange, caustic, alkaline waters where nature is doing its best to creep back.

Artistic Practice

Working outdoors has always been important to me, whether as a source for future work or as an end in itself—recording the topography of the landscape, the particularity of a place, and responding to what I see, which when working outside can change rapidly from minute to minute.

Much of my current work is made outside, but I may then take these responses into the studio where they reform into relief, in print or ceramics. Here the particularity, the calligraphy of marks, and the freshness achieved by responding directly from the landscape can only be exchanged for other unpredictable methods."

About the Artist

Georgia Wild is an artist who works in painting, drawing, printmaking, and ceramics. She works from her studio in Buxton. She studied Fine Art at John Moores University and then painting at the Royal Academy Schools in London. She has exhibited nationally with works in public and private collections.

Education

1999: Post Graduate Diploma in Painting, Royal Academy Schools, London
1994: BA Hons Fine Art, Liverpool John Moores University
1989: BTEC National Diploma in Art and Design, Newcastle-under-Lyme College

Exhibitions

2003: Century Gallery - Stick 'em up! Group summer show
2001: Rebecca Hossack Gallery - Group show
2001: Rebecca Hossack Gallery - Gilchrist-Fisher Award
1998: Mall Galleries - Discerning Eye
1998: Royal Academy of Arts - Premiums show
1995: Old School Gallery, Bleddfa - Borderlands, Landscape paintings
1995: Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent - Two person show
1991: Wavertree Gallery, Newcastle-under-Lyme - A celebration of colour