By Richard Lamberth
It was our love of bright paintings that led us to Liz Allen. We bought some cards in an art shop in Ferragudo and then tracked her down through a Google search to the tiny village of Chilrão, which is near Monchique.
This is where Liz paints and has a gallery, with open days once a month. It is a beautiful, remote village, close to the top of the Monchique mountain range where the weather changes fast and can be quite different from the sun-baked shores of the Algarve coastline.
Navigating the winding roads, we thought we must have gone wrong several times as we drove past waterfalls and through eucalyptus forests, but that first visit was truly worthwhile as we found an artist with a totally unique style and approach to her work.
Having studied art for many years, Liz emerged from the Bath Academy of Art with a BA (Hons) degree in fine art painting, but early working life was in London galleries and exhibition centres, organising displays and transportation of fine art.
It wasn’t until 1994 that Liz started painting again and then really began to develop her own style. Not content with that though, she has also trained to become an art teacher, running adult print and collage workshops for over 10 years.
Liz starts a painting with a cartoon-like drawing and then starts adding bold colours (mainly acrylic, though sometimes oil) and then dynamic patterns to form an almost mosaic effect and interpretation, which she describes as “a spontaneous response” to what she sees.
As a member of the Association of British Naïve Artists (ABNA), Liz follows in the footsteps of a difficult-to-define genre which developed in the 20th century but includes such luminaries as Henri Rousseau and L S Lowry.
The bright colours and unique take on town and cityscapes have inevitably drawn Liz back to her London roots. Whilst so many artists are inspired by the traditional and famous sites of the great city, Liz lived and worked in London for 15 years and has applied her own individual take on this to come up with some truly stunning pictures just lately.
As she says, “this is a familiar haunt with lots of great memories” – just take a look at the fine painting of The Tate Modern (pictured) – to many, the austere former power station, though bursting with great art, is a slightly ugly throwback to an industrial age but, with Liz’s personal interpretation, it is a riot of colour with the fantastic, pedestrian Millennium Bridge (which no longer wobbles!) in the foreground.
Having lived in the Algarve since 2005, many of Liz’s paintings reflect the dramatic beauty of the towns and villages in the region. A recent trip to Porto provided additional inspiration for this truly innovative artist.
Liz has an Open Studio event on Sunday October 27 between 11am and 5pm at the Old Dining Room Gallery, Quinta Pintados, Chilrão, and will be displaying her paintings in the mezzanine gallery at Fine & Country in Carvoeiro from November.
