From Cyprus to Bushey with Toulla

Toulla Hadjigeorgiou

flea (literally) bumped into local Bushey artist Toulla Hadjigeorgiou recently. We asked to hear what makes her 'tick?'

I have been painting for most of my life and turned professional in the mid 90's with the success of four solo exhibitions in Cyprus, including national tv coverage.  I am interested in architecture and have had countless commissions to paint pubs, hotels, restaurants and private homes.  Other commissions have been portraits of people of all different ages.  When presenting the commissioned painting to a client, I am often quite anxious until I see the delighted reaction on their face. 
 
I do feel that a lot of art that is being taught, in schools included, do not teach the basic skills of drawing.  Probably why, the more art qualifications people possess, the less likely they are to paint realism and more likely to produce work that is more a guess as to which way up it should hang.  I quit art at school and did woodwork instead and then did art at college for about 3 months and quit that too as I did not appreciate the way they wanted to change my art to expression rather than what I see in the world.  For this reason, I do not give any credit to any particular body for my work, I am completely self taught. 
 
You will often find, that most 'real' painters who can actually paint, especially realism, are like myself, self taught.  However, saying that, I do have to make it clear, that the old masters have influenced me in a big way.  When I was young I would collect any greeting cards produced from paintings of the old masters and copy the ones that I really liked.  This helped me and taught me to develop my work. 

It is for this reason, that a lot of my own landscapes are in the style of the old masters such as Constable, Vemeer, and 19th century painters like William H Snape, John Corcoran and Benjamin William Leader.  Even though they are long gone, they taught me more than any art teacher or lecturer. 
 
Whether I am out locally, or in any other country, my camera is always in my possession.  I look at everything as though it could be a potential painting.  I must have hundreds of photos of places and people as reference for future paintings.  I often combine a number of photos to create one painting and this can be in either watercolour, oil or even acrylic and mixed textures. 
 
In the past, artists were always men, and even if a woman had the talent, it was to be just a pastime and she could not pursue a career as an artist.  Even today, even though there are many women painters, they are far outweighed by men.  This could be that women have had to put their art on 'hold' to raise a family, and some may not return to art until later life, if at all. 

Any case, I want my art to give the viewer the ability to imagine wanting to be there and to admire the beauty we have around us. 

Toulla will soon be exhibiting her art at a major venue to be announced soon - flea'll keep you 'posted.'

This article was created on Monday, 21st June 2010. It was last tinkered with on Saturday, 10th December 2011.

Toulla is local, a keen dog walker and an artist of some repute with commissions from all over the world to her credit!  We're very happy to have just one of Toulla Hadjigeorgiou's images to grace this page - there is more inside this on-line flea!

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Inside Bushey Flea 309

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