Biography

Georgina Vestey is a British figurative artist who grew up in East Anglia and now lives in London. She has become a hugely popular exhibitor with many sell-out shows. After completing an Art Foundation course at the City and Guilds School of Art, she studied classical training for four years in the atelier tradition at the London Fine Art Studios.

Much of her work focuses on landscapes in the UK, overseas and Scotland. She paints en plein air in oils using thick, quick brush strokes to capture the immediate atmosphere. “I have a converted van, a second home for travelling and exploring Scotland’s landscape. It’s great to jump behind the wheel and go and look for unusual views or chase the weather. Catching a storm rolling in is just as interesting as painting a beautiful day. It can be blowing a gale, or it may be warm and muggy with terrible midgies, but it’s those fleeting, crazy moments that make the best pictures.”

Georgina’s love of landscape stems from childhood holidays in Scotland. Stand-out memories are Elie Beach in Fife, with mesmerising light across the Firth of Forth, and Achmelvich Beach on the dramatic west coast in the Highlands. The secluded white sandy beaches, juxtaposed with turquoise seas and pink, craggy rocks, are scenes that resonate with the great Scottish Colourists, particularly Francis Cadell and Samuel Peplo, whose work and heavy use of paint (impasto) has always been inspirational.

In her book Scottish Colourists, Susan Grange says that their approach to painting was intuitive. The sensuous delight in the use of colour and the effects of light and the multitude of shapes and variety of textures of the material world were explored and relished. Their works are…a celebration of life, something that is still very much needed and valued today.’

Other influencers include the Spanish master of light Joaquín Sorolla and the late great English painter Edward Seago from Norfolk, whose landscapes and seascapes resonate with her childhood appreciation for huge skies and ever-changing seas.

Georgina’s work reflects the Scottish Colourists’ celebration of life in her love for colour and the outdoors. It’s about finding an exciting view caught in extraordinary light. What is the atmosphere? It could be a coloured buoy gently bobbing on glistening water or the speed of a racing shadow in its changing palette over mountains. Whatever it may be, it’s a starting point. After that, she has fun and allows the picture to evolve. It’s going well when she recognises time lost doing what she loves most is reappearing in perpetuity on the canvas.

Jane Pruden

Exhibitions

  • DAYS LIKE THIS, Solo Exhibition, London, May 2025

  • Summer Exhibition, Wade Gallery 2024

  • Chelsea Art Society, London 2024

  • CASTING LIGHT, Group Exhibition, The Dundas Street Gallery, Edinburgh, 2023

  • Summer Exhibition, Wade Gallery 2023

  • Solo Exhibition, 340 Kings Road, London, May 2023

  • LFAS Tutors and DeLaszlo Scholars 2023

  • Art For Youth, Mall Galleries 2022

  • Summer Exhibition at Wade Gallery 2022

  • Chelsea Art Society, London 2022

  • TURAS, Solo Exhibition, London 2021

  • Art For Youth, Online Exhibition, 2020

  • Summer Exhibition, Wade Gallery 2020

  • Art For Youth Mall Galleries 2019

  • A Year In Paint, London 2019

  • A Brush with India, Indian High Commission’s Nehru Centre 2019

  • Summer Exhibition, Wade Gallery 2019

  • Chelsea Art Society, London 2019

  • A Brush with India, London and Suffolk 2018

  • Chelsea Art Society 2018

  • The Studio Artists, Foss Fine Art, London 2017

  • Art For Youth Mall Galleries, 2017

  • Art For Youth, Mall Galleries 2016

  • The Craft of Drawing and Painting, Leighton House Museum 2015