Artist: Amie Antoniak

Amie Antoniak's paintings are all based on her long-held fascination with sky and landscapes, some of which have been painted, quite literally, from new perspectives. An earlier collection involved a plane flight for inspiration and resulted in stunning landscapes painted from above the clouds for which Amie won a highly prestigious Royal Acadamy Landscape Painting Award. Since then she has taken the idea further and painted a series of paintings inspired by a hot air balloon ride over Yorkshire.

Other paintings are based on memories of lakes, forests and fields. Amie is often inspired by the time of the year and the changing of the seasons; painting huge vibrant autumn scenes in September, wintery trees in December, and lushes green willow tress reflecting in the water in summer. Trips abroad are also a huge inspirational trigger, Amie will often work from her own photographs on her return to the studio.

Amie with her new collection in the Artfulness Gallery

Amie says she wants to evoke senses of 'escapism, freedom, space and infinity' and certainly suceeds on dramatic large scale canvasses. She wants the viewer to feel that they can walk into the painting, and then walk around in it and explore for a while.

Amie's skyscape paintings often echo that of artist Debra Stroud, known for her abstract skies. This is unsurprising when you hear Amie describing the ever-changing sky as 'God's own abstract painting'.