Local artist to have work displayed in London gallery

Surrey animal and pet artist Tanya Bell will have her artwork displayed at the Capital Art Gallery in London.

The gallery displays work from a combination of professional and up and coming artists, with up to 500 pieces that change every four weeks.

Tanya has been painting for as long as she can remember and started off by doing portraits of people’s pets and her own exotic birds.

She said: “I started doing pastel portraits of parrots and putting the pictures on Facebook pages. It produced a lot of people asking me for portraits of their birds.

“So I’ve done that and was quite successful. I’ve been painting more like natural things lately, the skies and trees and putting a lot of bright colours in them.

“It’s a freedom for me, I put my headphones on, the paint is moving around the canvas and there is nothing like it.”

Tanya’s work will go on display Sunday, July 7 for a month and people will have the opportunity to purchase pieces of her artwork. Although having her work exhibited for the first time is nerve-wracking, Tanya said that her friends and family been nothing but supportive and encouraging.

People can send in portraits of their pets for Tanya to paint and her work goes as far as Australia and the United States. Tanya thanked the gallery’s owner Karl Sproat for the opportunity and is very excited to see what will happen next.