Ruth McCabe

The brooding wildness of Pennine moors, and dense, dark structures of industrial West Yorkshire were the setting of Ruth’s childhood. Now living in Suffolk, this easterly, edgy and vulnerable coastline: classically beautiful, or scarred by industry are an inspiration. Quiet and a sense of solitude are conveyed in her contemplative watercolours, the oils picking up on other energies: joy, passion, conflict.
A first degree in Botany and Zoology taught her to look carefully, and began a life-long deepening appreciation of the immense complexity of form and function. 30 years then elapsed where mark-making ‘went underground’ to become an activity within the mind during her training and work in psychotherapy.
On moving to Suffolk, mark-making re-emerged, and since 2011 she has largely made her own journey in an instinctive way, sketching outdoors, then in the studio interpreting and evolving, much as in her psychotherapeutic practice.  Staying with uncertainty remains key in all her work.
Ruth invites the onlooker to relate to what they see through feeling and imagination. Her watercolour work is seen as innovative, and has been successful in national contemporary watercolour competitions, and exhibited at both The Mall Galleries and Bankside Gallery, London.