"Annie Rouse clearly has a great love of painting. Her pictures say it all. They chart the passage of time, she says, journeys made, stories told, notes in sketchbooks, scratches on walls and old songs.
There is nothing overworked in these paintings. Instead there is a quirky almost childlike spontaneity, a love of drawing, of texture and the viscosity of oil paint laid on thickly. Most of her paintings are in a large format, better to carry her vision, though in this exhibition there are also some delightful smaller works. Occasionally she moves towards abstract, with blocks of colour. Isolated images within a composition - vases and tea cups, flowers, mugs, oranges and lemons pack her canvasses.
Undoubtedly there are influences, Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, the Scottish painter is one, but like all good artists she takes from the best and disregards the rest, putting a stamp on her own work.
Annie received a B.A. Hons in Fine Art Painting from Central St. Martins. She has exhibited widely in Britain and overseas, including a number of times at the Royal Academy Summer show, The Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries in London." Brian Sinfield
Annie now works daily from her studio at Wimbledon Art Studios, where she has been for the last fifteen years. Annie paints whatever subject matter excites her - the subject can also dictate the style in which she paints. Her paintings deal with ethereal moments and passing time almost like fractions of a poem. She continues to experiment with drawing on different surfaces and textures, and uses a variety of materials to build up a working surface, including oil paint, crayons, pencil, and charcoal. Annie loves texture and uses the viscosity of oil paint to sculpt forms onto her canvas.
