About Mari French RI

Mari French is emerging as one of East Anglia's most respected abstract painters. She grew up in Manchester close to the Pennine Hills, originally working as a graphic designer. She then lived for several years on the Isle of Skye developing her abstract landscapes. Mari now lives in Norfolk, working as a full-time artist, from her studio on a former 1930s RAF airbase. The roots of her paintings lie in her deep-seated affinity with landscape and weather, capturing the elemental forces of wild and less-visited landscapes. She says about her creative process “I try to evoke the shift of weather and light on a place and this is reflected in the sense of movement and change in the work itself. I sketch on location but in the studio I work instinctively, using a variety of media to evoke my experience of a place rather than a representation”. Mari has exhibited widely; she regularly exhibits with the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours (RI) at the Mall Galleries, London; she has also exhibited with The Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) at Bankside Gallery, London; was a finalist in Artist & Illustrator Magazine's 'Artist of the Year' 2016; and a finalist in The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2014. In 2022 she was elected a full member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI). Her work has been featured in both the ‘Artist’ and ‘Artist & Illustrator’ magazines as well as in several art books and is held in private collections around the world.