About the artist

Merilyn Brason
Merilyn Brason

One of my earliest memories is of the smell of paint, the almost tangible air of concentration, and the magic of watching images appear from paper as I watched my mother studying Chinese art under a traditional Chinese tutor in Beijing where we lived.  I spent my childhood and adolescence sketching and painting watercolours, and as my parents travelled extensively I was fortunate to spend time in a variety of countries and landscapes, from China to Africa and the weald of Kent.  On reflection, this nomadic existence although exciting was not a secure background for a child seeking to belong!

My passion for the sea materialised in my early teens when my family moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands and that world of cliffs, rocks, sand and the endless ceaselessly fascinating rhythmn of the sea.  I learned to sail.  I spent hours and hours spell bound by waves.  I have been hooked ever since.  As a young woman I spent several years living in Australia, near the beach, and yes, I learned to surf, although I was never very good at it!  I designed silver jewellery featuring opals but my main love was always drawing and painting and I became successful at selling my work.

Life's adventure continued and I travelled as much as I could, lived as fully as I could. loved deeply, and have been blessed with three wonderful sons and a step son, all talented in their own ways.  Finally I found myself living with my partner in Gloucestershire where I trained and worked for many years as a psychotherapist. I started to study painting 'properly', and will be eternally grateful for the encouragement and wisdom of art teachers Jeremy Duncan and Rob Collins whose work, as artists and teachers, I esteem.  They opened the world of oil painting for me, and I feel that they have given me the key of freedom, that I had long been seeking.  An instinctive love became a passion and a new adventure.