122. Holly Brodie - Spectrum

2026
Oil on board
18 x 12.5 cm (Unframed)
21 x 16 x 4 cm (Framed)
Signed on Verso

Holly Brodie is a London-based painter whose work explores the subjective experience of place and the ways seemingly unremarkable landscapes become charged through memory, familiarity, and personal association. Raised in rural Somerset, Brodie draws particular inspiration from suburbia and its social and architectural histories, examining how environments shape emotional and psychological experience.

Originally studying English Literature, Brodie’s practice remains informed by literary structures and narrative thinking. Her paintings ask how places accumulate meaning over time and how memory, observation, and imagination alter our perception of landscape. Often focusing on overlooked or transitional spaces, the works balance close observation with a quiet sense of atmosphere and introspection.

Brodie completed a BA in English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford (1998–2001), where she was encouraged to explore the relationship between literature and visual art — a dialogue that continues to underpin her practice.

Selected exhibitions include the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London (2025; also 2007–08); the Annual Open Exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (2023 and multiple previous years); the ING Discerning Eye at Mall Galleries, London (2022; also 2016); Figurative Art Now at Mall Galleries (2021); the John Ruskin Prize at Millennium Gallery, Sheffield (2017); and the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition at Mall Galleries (2013; also 2007). Other exhibitions include the National Open Art Competition at Royal College of Art, London (2015), and Somerset House, London (2014).

In 2014, Brodie received the Winsor & Newton Painting Award at the Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition.