Taihape artist features at Taylor-Jensen

A collection of watercolour paintings by Taihape artist Celia Guy features in the latest exhibition at Taylor-Jensen Gallery in Palmerston North.

Eclectic Impressions opens on December 3 and runs until December 24.

Mrs Guy's work has been described as "minimalist yet lively".

Mrs Guy was raised on a station in the McKenzie Country where life was ruled by snow and floods.

After finishing school, she attended Ilam School of Arts in Christchurch with additional art tutoring by her mother and grandmother, both accomplished artists in their own right.

Following her studies at Ilam, she trained as a Karitane Nurse specialising in the care of babies and children.

After her marriage, Mrs Guy lived at Brunswick, Whanganui, Mangaweka, Mataroa and later at Taihape, raising three sons and a daughter.

While living in mostly rural settings, she managed to involve herself with community art groups and continued to paint at every opportunity. Family, piano exams and dressage on a Hanoverian horse took time but Ms Guy still kept up with painting and sketching potential subject matter for later work.

She now lives 15km from Taihape, on a farm that is 600m above sea level. "Winters can be cold - a regular reminder of my McKenzie Country upbringing."

She works in her own art studio, producing paintings in oils, watercolour, gouache, pastel or egg tempera.

Mrs Guy's subjects vary from portraits to landscapes, buildings to flowers, animals to spectacular sunsets.

She is most well-known for her simplistic depiction of life in the high country of the Rangitikei and the South Island areas of the Banks Peninsula, Tekapo, Mt. Cook, Wanaka and Queenstown.

Although a realist in her art practice she does not shy away from including abstracted forms in her works making them unique visual presentations.