About Brenda Hartill

Brenda Hartill is a celebrated British painter, collage artist and printmaker whose career spans more than five decades. Working across painting, collage, etching, collagraph, carborundum and monoprint techniques, her practice is driven by a fascination with texture, pattern, atmosphere and the shifting qualities of light within the landscape.

Raised in New Zealand and originally trained as a painter, Brenda moved to London in the 1960s on a scholarship, where she initially explored theatrical design before fully embracing printmaking. Over the years, her work has evolved from finely observed figurative studies of London life to richly layered abstract compositions inspired by the natural world. The dramatic landscapes and intense light of Southern Europe and New Zealand continue to inform her visual language, alongside the softer greys and muted tones of London and Sussex.

Now based in South London after two decades living near Rye, Brenda continues to work from her studio beside the railway at Cator Cottage. Although no longer able to use her much-loved Rochat press, her creative process remains rooted in experimentation, memory and close observation. Her mixed-media collages, paintings and prints balance spontaneity with structure, often combining hand-worked surfaces, layered textures and organic forms to evoke erosion, movement and transformation within the landscape.

Brenda’s work ranges from her celebrated Londoners’ London series, capturing the rhythm and character of city life, to atmospheric abstractions and deeply embossed prints inspired by Spain, Sussex and the volcanic terrain of New Zealand. Through collage, free drawing and layered mark-making, her compositions carry both emotional immediacy and a strong sense of place.

A member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, Brenda has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Bankside Gallery and Curwen & New Academy. Her work is held in major public and private collections worldwide.

“For me, art is a voyage of discovery. A dance between chance and control, the abstract and the personal. Each print tells a story of process, place and possibility.”
— Brenda Hartill