Victoria Stanway became a professional artist in 2008 to meet demand for her paintings. Working from her studio in Oxfordshire her practice has focused predominantly on the landscape in various forms and methods. Her first series of work entitled 'Landscapes of the Mind'. are inspired by a combination of fading memories, and dreams, often citing references from her past, conjuring mindscapes that are thought provoking and emotive.
Victoria comments on her motivation for this first series.
"I grew up in a dying milltown in east Lancashire, which consisted of rows and rows of back to back terraces, redundant textile mills, and factories all crammed in together in a chaotic fashion, but it was surrounded by luminous countryside which I would escape to. These paintings are often fragmented, contrasting and blurring the references, reflecting my feelings towards them.
You can sometimes see reoccurring symbols in the paintings, such as buildings and windows, often with strange characters I remember from my youth lurking in the shadows. The terraced houses represent oppressive, claustrophobic, restricting memories, of feeling stifled and hemmed in as a child. I take these ideas further in some paintings, constructing narratives which have had a cathartic impact on my practice"
To the left you can see an example of Victoria's early landscape work. In her painting No Way Out, the artist has used cubist sensibilities to reflect a sense of chaos and oppression; by depicting the terrace streets in a multi-dimensional and labyrinth fashion. The colour pallet of mainly cold blues and greens are an expression of an emotional distance, with flashes of menacing dark crimson in some of the darkest corners on the backstreets.
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Victoria's landscapes naturally evolved from this to a more fluid expressionist style. More semi abstract in method, the next series explored similar themes but weren't as representational.
Most of the landscape paintings belong in private collections
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Exhibitions
Taurus Gallery (2006)
Oxford Nuffield Hospital (2006)
Banbury Museum ( 2006)
Chipping Norton Theatre Gallery(Aug-Sept)
The Mill Arts Centre Art2 (2007) Finalist in Best in Show
Oxford Artweeks (2008)
Bournemouth Pinewalk (Aug 2008)
Open Art at Hawksmoor School (Sept 2008)
Bicester Art Exhibition - St Edburg's (Oct 2008)
Oxford Art Society Open - Said Business School Oxford (Oct 2008)
Awful Fantastic - Pavillion II, Buckingham Museum (Nov 2008)
Banbury Mill Arts Centre - Samhain (Nov 2008)
Angel Christmas Art Fair - Islington, (Dec 2008)
Art on the Hill - Brill (Apr 2009)
Creative Gallery - Woodstock (May 2009)
Oxford Art Society - Said Business School (Oct 2009)
Banbury Museum - Art 2 (Dec 2009)
AIM Gallery - MK (Dec 2009)
Potteries Museum - Stoke on Trent (March 2010)
Kings Sutton Literary Festival - Kings Sutton ( March 2010)
Oxford Artweeks - Open Studio Event (May 2010)
Art2 - Banbury Museum (October 2011)
Art In Woodstock - The Buttery (October 2011)
Oxford Artweeks - Appleton (May 2012_
Oxford Artweeks - West Oxfordshire Arts (Bampton Museum)
Oxford Art Fair - The Fishes (Sept 2012)
New Artists Fair - Brick Lane (Oct 2012)
Bicester Village Visitors Centre - Bicester Village (Dec 2012 - Jan 2013)
Oxford Artweeks - Appleton (May 2013)
Truman Gallery London (Aug 2013)
OYAP Studio , Women in Art (2018)
Artweeks, Art Cafe Oxford (2019)
Banbury Museum, Ironstone Art Prize (Jan 2020)