Kay Vinson studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, achieving a first class B.A Hons Degree and M.A in painting. Her numerous awards for painting include The Boise Travelling Scholarship to Russia, Italy and Istanbul and Kay is a two time recipient of the prestigious Canadian Award for figurative painting, from the Elizabeth Greenshield’s Foundation.

At the Slade, she was also awarded The William Coldstream Prize for the most promising newcomer, the Rosa Morrison scholarship and the Douglas Woolf Award. Kay has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Leighton House, London and the Millenium Gallery, St Ives, Penlee House Penzance and Tregony Gallery since 2016. She has work in public collections, including University College London and Jesus College Cambridge and many private collections throughout the UK and world.

Kay writes; The model in the environment and the environment itself is the motif I continue to work from. My concern with the flat pattern across the rectangle and the spatial movement within the motif is a thread that continues to run through my work; doorways, windows, indistinct reflections, branches, layering inside and outside. These things are beautiful, not for what they are but for their web of shapes and the mystery they take on in the dense grey light or intense sunshine of a Cornish day.

My influences include De Hooch, Rembrandt, Ingres, Diebenkorn and Chardin. Adjustments of line and proportion help me get closer. I work directly in front of the motif. I try to make its presence; its ‘nowness’ and ‘thereness’ along with my own existence in relation to the motif an almost tangible thing, making it as resonant as possible.

Earlier work is more obviously ‘measured’. Recently I have painted on a smaller scale and have been mindful of the point where measuring is useful but does not intrude on my contact with the motif. I tend not to think about colour – colour is remembered with closed eyes. I think about touching with painted equivalents for my visual sensations.