When I first saw UK artist Gertie Young’s “Tea with Nana,” I thought: beautiful, enchanting, lyrical, joyful.

Sometimes you stumble upon a painting and you just know. Here is something different, distinctive. You can’t stop looking at it, you feel connected to it, and somehow it feels like coming home.

Born in Nottingham, England, Young (b. 1950) has been painting since childhood. She invented comics, pretend photos, imaginary maps and dream paintings. At the age of 18, she moved to South London to study at Hornsey School of Art. She fell in love with the city and has lived there ever since, continuing to paint while working at various jobs until her retirement in 2016, when she began to paint full time.

Her art is a unique visual language based on a mixture of observation, emotional memory and imagination. She’s inspired by holiday travel, household objects, walking and gardening.

I seek out mysterious gardens and squares and the quiet spaces where birds and urban creatures congregate and live their secret lives. Small things catch my attention, everyday incidents I would have missed when I was younger. There are distant city views, cars and vans, deliveries and tradesmen all caught in the life of the street. There are parks and houses and the life of the river. I paint whatever comes my way and settles itself in my eye.

As for her still life subjects, she admits “there is nothing that is completely still,” as she draws out their stories, their little joys. From the shape of a wooden bird she had as a student, to the yellow of a vase she had as a young mother, to the sadness of a remaining teacup, she delights in their explanation as she “makes the careful marks of old memories.”

She utilizes mixed media for her pieces — watercolor, gouache, or acrylic with collage and sometimes, pencil. I love her rich colors and textures, her interesting compositions, her penchant for layering. Her pieces have a certain intuitive quality about them that feels unstudied yet purposeful in the stories they tell.

It is fascinating how she often juxtaposes the mundane with the magical, the natural with the man-made. What is reality, what is fantasy? Do they coexist, and how do we cross from one realm into the other? In this way she reminds me of the Romantic poets, who believed in the primacy of the imagination for creative expression. Dream and make it so.

Each of Young’s paintings is “like a little journey that makes its way out into the unknown.” She begins without knowing a painting’s subject, and is unable to visualize what a finished piece will look like. The logical part of her mind is not actually the part that does the painting. She considers the activity of painting an adventure in itself.

The only way for me to paint is by knowing nothing and expecting nothing.  I plunge into a journey armed with just myself, my paints and my piece of card.  Sometimes my hands know what to do, what goes where, sometimes my eyes add a shape or a colour.  Everything is filtered through memories of things I may have previously seen or felt that now arise newly formed and different.  I am present enjoying the sheer pleasure of painting but I am also aware of the sunlight through the skylight, the birds singing outside, the passing traffic, the bin men. I trust that I will be taken somewhere and that I will complete the journey, if not now then at some later time, no pressure. I leave the logical part outside to worry about stuff.

Gertie has won many national competitions, and she’s participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. She’s a member of the Royal Watercolour Society and has served as society treasurer. Her paintings can be found in private collections in the USA, Oman, Israel, Switzerland, Germany, France and Spain as well as in the UK. 

For more of Gertie Young’s work, visit her Official Website and Instagram. Original paintings may be purchased via The Royal Watercolor Society and Bankside Gallery.

Enjoy this short video of Gertie discussing her work.

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