Beth Partridge’s work explores the ambiguity of landscape, from the microscopic level to the galactic, and from dreamscapes to the cellular world. ‘Invisible Worlds’ is a lively collection she has been working on over the last few months, using vivid jewel-like tones to create colourful paintings that speak to the very nature of consciousness.

Spontaneity and presence are central to her creative process. She does not begin with a set theme but starts with horizontal lines on canvas, then builds these up to create landscapes with a sense of the otherworldly. Working with an alchemy of mixed media, she blends inks, pure pigment, acrylic spray paints and fluid mediums onto canvas to form layers of colour and texture.

“Sometimes I can catch the magic within the shapes and forms that emerge like remembering a dream. There’s always a sense of something I’m trying to reach. But it’s very much about the present moment. The form starts to appear and then I move with it. I wanted to create an uplifting feeling which is why I chose a palette that’s saturated in colour,” she says.

She loves the fact that people interpret her work in diverse ways. “Nothing gives me greater pleasure than when two people see radically different things in one of my pictures,’ she says.

After taking an art foundation course, Beth studied for a combined art and dance degree at Brighton University. “I would always get my inspiration from drawings, doodles, and colours, and then I’d create living landscapes. For my degree show I did a performance, but I created a very painterly four-dimensional landscape,” she explains.

A career in performance and dance followed in her twenties, but in her thirties, she returned to drawing. She now works from a studio nestled next to her house down a little farm track in East Sussex, where she lives with her husband and two children. Beth combines painting with her work as a therapist and sees both as integral to her wholeness. Wildflowers grow through the cracks in her studio, bringing the outside in and inspiring her imagination.

She says: “I explore the ambiguity of landscapes. Something that’s important to me is both the macro and the micro. When you look at landscapes you can zoom in and you can zoom out. My paintings have elements of those qualities. When I work with my mediums, there’s always movement that occurs on the paper or the canvas, which I suppose comes from my dance background. There’s always a sense of continuity and presence. For me that’s deeply integral in the creative process.”

Beth has exhibited and sold her work internationally. Her collaborations include creating a limited-edition print for the clothing brand, Cos, as well as staging a joint exhibition, ‘Spectacular Nature’ in their Coal Drop King’s Cross store. She has also worked with Bombay Sapphire to create paintings infused with gin. For many years she worked with the late Ralph Levy painting her worlds onto his beautiful porcelain pottery.