Ann Shrager NEAC

Ann Shrager is a much-loved British artist who is a member of the NEAC and trained at the Byam Shaw School of Painting and the Royal Academy Schools. She trained under Bernard Dunstan at Byam Shaw who gave her the advice to “paint what you love and love what you paint” which she feels makes you emotionally involved in your subject and in turn shows in the work you create. She went onto the Royal Academy Schools to be taught glazing techniques and how to expand her paintings both in size and medium by Tony Eyton and Jane Dowling and subsequently to leaving the Royal Academy Schools, Ann was offered exhibitions in various galleries which has led to a successful career as an artist.

 

Among Ann Shrager's favourite subjects are elephants and their relationship with their mahouts, goat herders (one black goat in paritcular appears in several compositions), as well as Indian brides and grooms and ladies in saris and various birds. She likes to paint bleached landscapes and seascapes and has been influenced by Indian and Persian miniatures which is evident in many of her paintings. Ann uses oil paint diluted with turps as her medium because it behaves like watercolour and she draws her composition first, and if it fails she will draw a different composition on top and this means there could be as many as four different paintings on top of each other which leads to a build up of impasto. There is a quietness about Ann’s work and although colour is a key part in her paintings there is a subdued softness coupled with simplicity and space.