Local artist in RA summer exhibition

Local artist Jillian Eldridge has had a painting accepted at this year’s Royal Academy summer exhibition from June 17 to August 17. Her painting Merchant of Venice is of three draped fabrics in red, ochre, orange and gold hues and exquisitely captures the silky sheen, pattern and texture of the folds of the fabric. It is one of over 1,700 pieces which include work by famous artists as well as members of the public, selected from 18,000 entries by architect Farshid Moussavi RA and her summer exhibition committee.

Jillian has long been an admirer of 16th century artists such as Holbein the Younger and their ability to depict fabric was what inspired her RA painting. “I have had a love of beautiful materials for many years and collected silks, decorative fabric, satin, lace and gold fabric, all of which I used in still life classes over the years. I decided to get them out of the drawer last year and tidy them up, and when I was handling them thought how I would love to paint them. I chose three materials for the first painting; lovely silk made up of a pink and deep yellow warp and weft which makes a beautiful orange that shines pink in certain light and darker in the shadows. I put it with a heavy embroidered cloth of ochre with rust red patterning and then a piece of gold material which has a glorious shine. I hung them together on nails on my studio wall, and they took on a kind of persona, I thought, of a somewhat wealthy individual. Merchant of Venice came into my mind as a title very early on.”

“Finding the right colours and blending them, moving them about on the canvas, first as a rough oil sketch and then blocking in areas of light and dark and everything in between, is generally how I start. Then day-by-day the painting emerges, and the further it goes on, the more exciting it gets, as you put down a colour on an area and suddenly it takes on a glow that you’ve been hoping for. I love the challenge of gold, finding the right colours to put together to depict a shiny material that reflects the colours around it.”

As Jillian was pleased with how the painting turned out, she applied to the RA summer show in February. “You send in a digital image and entry numbers are capped at 18,000, so expectation wasn’t that high. I was delighted to be told eventually that I had reached the shortlist of 4,000 entries, and it wasn’t until May 30 that I heard that my painting had been chosen for the exhibition. I have to admit I was thrilled to have succeeded.”

Jillian went to the Royal Academy’s varnishing day last week and was excited to see her painting on display. “Varnishing day is a long tradition when all the artists gather at the Royal Academy and process down to St James’s church in Piccadilly following the church rector and a steel band and generally holding up the traffic. It is a few hours of mixing with hundreds of fellow artists and the atmosphere is great. After the service it’s back to the RA for champagne and of course to find your painting, hoping it’s in a good place on the wall, which it was! Such a very pleasurable feeling. My partner and I went up for the private view on Sunday and I was delighted to find that it was sold.”

Jillian, who has a studio at Rye Creative Centre, has a second painting in an exhibition in London. Homage to Green and Blue is on show at the Unit 1 Gallery 100/50 from June 20 to July 20.

Also in the show is a charcoal sketch by ex Rye Harbour artist now living in Yorkshire, Sarah Nelson, called The Auctioneer. As reported in Rye News, Sarah previously had a painting accepted at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 2022.

Image Credits: Jillian Eldridge , Sarah Nelson .