Beatrice Hasell-McCosh‘s work uses natural form as the lens to explore cyclicality, identity linked to place and human connection. Drawing is vital to her practise and she uses closely observed studies made from life to make large-scale paintings in her studio. She works as much from memory as from the studies and, in playing with scale, the focus of importance gives way (from direct figurative representation) to a flattened abstraction of those shapes with aesthetic choices relating to composition, texture and gestural use of colour taking on the primary importance. With a degree in English and Classics reading widely around a subject is important to her practise. The titles of each large work cite the disparate elements of this research from literature to pop culture, song lyrics and art historical links.
Beatrice’s recent work is a series of monumental paintings around cyclicality and identity (both geographical and imagined). Many of her works are presented in various parts (a motif which began after a trip to Japan in 2018). Kintsugi and the idea of beauty in imperfection has been significant in her thinking since then and it is seen in a number of her works where the different elements of the triptych or diptych are uneven. As a twin she is also naturally attracted to multiple parts that make up a whole and most often the form of her work is in diptych.
During the global pandemic the reassuring continuity and cycle of nature became completely absorbing to the artist who watched and drew from the same spots continuously seeing plants grow up crowd together, bloom and die, and being replaced with the new. When working in oil the scale changes dramatically from the original watercolour imagery and the painting becomes much more about the material fact of the paint rather than the subject with the negative shapes expanding the architectural structure of the marks. Her influences are wide ranging, from music to Disney productions set design, comic book strips, historic adverts, Chagall’s stained glass, the freezing of a moment in poetry and the traditions of tapestry and wallpaper design.
Beatrice (b.1990, UK) studied English and Classics at Leeds University and then spent two years studying at Leith School of Art in Edinburgh and The Royal Drawing School in London. Her work is in private collections around the UK, Europe, Japan and the USA. Most recently her work has been acquired by the Royal Collection Trust, The Groucho Club (Hauser & Wirth), the Ligabue Foundation in Venice and the Garden Museum. She has curated two exhibitions, both focusing on the importance of drawing. Her first museum solo presentation was at the Garden Museum in London in 2022. She works in London.