"My paintings are as much about the actual paint on the surface as about the subject matter. Working with oil paint, I build up layers of colour and texture to create an image that will hopefully have some resonance with the viewer. Being in the studio is a mysterious place where the paint takes over from any set ideas I start with and often unexpectedly leads me to a finished work." Kirsty Wither.  


As a Scot who graduated from Grays School of Art in Aberdeen, the Colourist heritage has always been peripherally apparent but what makes Kirsty Wither's work instantly identifiable is the depth and subtlety of the lavishly applied layers of oil paint. There is an almost sculptural feel to the surface of the work created by her vigorous use of the palette knife.
Kirsty Wither's studio is a riot of colour, of canvases on every wall, of brushes and palette knives on every surface. Yet appearances can be deceptive, for the paintings which Kirsty Wither creates here are well thought out, expertly made, while at the same time maintaining that all important ability to excite.
"…a painter at the height of her powers and one determined to develop and refine her very personal artistic vision." Tom Hewlett, Portland Gallery, London
Oil has been her preferred medium since the very beginning. "When I first discovered oil paint at Art School that was me hooked," she says. "The smell, the texture, the handling and the mess was to me just wonderful. I love oil's malleability before it dries and its permanence afterwards."
Since graduating from Grays School of Art in Aberdeen in 1990, Wither has had numerous successful exhibitions and her work now hangs in many private collections in addition to prominent corporate and public ones. In 2004 Kirsty Wither was elected an Artist Member of the Chelsea Arts Club.