Minna George MA is a British award-winning artist born in 1981 based in London.

Minna George MA is a British award-winning artist born in 1981 based in London. Graduating from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2003 she continued her studies with an MA from Kingston University in European Fine Art Practice and graduated with distinction.  Minna has enjoyed sell out shows in the UK and Worldwide and her work has been shown over the last 25 years in over 100 exhibitions. Her collectors include the late Stanley Seeger, Will Smith, Dame Penelope Keith, Museum of Modern art Kuwait amongst others. Her name has now been associated with the secondary market in Sotheby’s as well as the National Portrait Gallery – London and the National Gallery in Kuwait where Minna is one of the few western artists to have been granted the chance of a solo show back in 2008.

‘Legends’

Drawing and sketching has been integral behind Minna’s paintings. The instantaneous mark making with charcoal, graphite or ink on paper is the unique process that records an instant gesture and expression provoked by subject matter insight.

Minna began her artistic career creating hundreds of observational sketches, depicting landscape, seascapes and figures. Transferring them onto canvas compositions in a traditional sense and then proceeding with painting over them, resulted often with having a sketch and a painting based on that secondary sketch.

“Sketching is the most honest representation of a true artistic emotion, captured and sealed in the very moment where vision, inspiration and thought collide.”

“The energy behind an initial sketch is never the same when transferred or resized onto a different surface by hand, resulting in a replacement sketch of a sketch!”

Minna believes that an important element is lost during this transition, hence our desire to seek out and why we value the ‘study sketch’ of famous pieces of art often as much as the painting they inspired. After many years of creative practice and experimentation Minna arrived at the conclusion that the initial sketch and drawing should be built within the final painting. This way she feels she is creating a ‘full circle’ of artistic technique around her subject matter, beginning with the sketch and never losing it.

The original sketch is preserved by the process of enlarging and printing directly onto a unique plexiglass composite – a complex and costly process, which ensures the strongest and highest quality smooth finish. The choice of plexiglass composite and not paper is to symbolise the strength of the sketch rather than its fragility. Minna created this complex yet exciting process of using different media, including drawing, printing, painting and sculpting, to achieve the glacial effect of her subjects that has taken many months of experimentation and analysis. The results of which, are highly defined by texture and super glazed high gloss finishes, portraits of the world’s legendary summits.

Painting the Alps is a never-ending love affair for Minna. She has spent significant time studying their majestic curves and folds from hundreds of viewing points sketchpad and pencil in hand where everyone else around her is caring climbing equipment. In this collection she pays special tribute to the summits gracing the ‘the crown’ of central Europe – The Alps!

Her sketches and wide contemporary brushstrokes capture the character and paramount magnificence of Mont Blanc towering over the ranges of Aigulles, Du Dru, Monte Rosa, Matterhorn, Eiger, Schreckhorn, Monch, alongside some spectacularly scenic views capturing Mer de Glace, Valley Blanc, Lac Blanc and more. All members of the same family, they stand strong each revealing its unique characteristics captured by Minna’s eye and expressed with her paintbrushes. The technique and surface have been purposefully appropriated to reflect the light and movement one can only experience at an Alpine altitude. The rigid media she uses is to signify the perception of strength and fragility as well as a modern media reflecting her time as an artist today.