Chelsea Renton exhibits in Lewes

It features a Christmas sale of work from Chelsea Renton’s studio: drawings, sculpture, paintings and illustrations including the original watercolour cartoons from Chelsea’s popular strip in The Oldie magazine and subsequent book published by Oneworld: A Field Guide to the Peoples of the British Isles.

Gallery director Neeta Pedersen said: “These make for perfect funny, affordable Christmas presents or stocking fillers. Look out for familiar characters – the hipster, the DFL, the Yummy Mummy, the Wild Swimmer, the middle-class festival-goer and many, many more. Other work on sale will include final-edition bronze animals plus landscape paintings and drawings from Sussex and Scotland. She will also be showing a new collection of large-scale oil portraits of local Sussex people, as well as portrait drawings and some of the painted clay heads produced while she was artist in residence at Glyndebourne.

“Chelsea says she finds it hard to sit still and do nothing – so she will be doing quick portrait sketches during the run of the show at the Star Brewery Gallery. Come along and watch her at work, or if you fancy posing yourself, you can book in for a two-hour sitting by emailing her at [email protected].”

Chelsea Renton (b 1965) has been a practising artist throughout her adult life, starting as an assistant mural artist for London Underground and working as a cartoonist for the Independent, The European and the first Boden mail order catalogues.

"She works in a wide variety of media - painting, drawing and sculpting – often working outside or within her studio van. She is though perhaps best known for her numerous portraits (bronzes, charcoals and paintings), her most notable works being of Denis Healey, Richard E Grant and the large bronze of Sir George Christie in the Long Bar at Glyndebourne.

“Chelsea tends to work to commission or sell from her studio, though she does periodic solo shows.”