About

Rita Sennik is a contemporary fine artist living and working in Hampshire.  Born in Kenya, she graduated as an architect from Nottingham University and worked extensively, both in Kenya and England till 2011. A 2014 Fine Art graduate from the Winchester School of Art, she is developing her practice as a painter.

She explores the emotional dynamics of being a woman through her paintings, celebrating the female form in its physical reality embodying the psyche within. The artist attempts to capture the immediacy, touch and movement of making, accentuating the tactility and texture of paint, to insist on parity between the subject, the process of creation and the substance of the work.

1980 – 2011      Architect

2011  – 2014     Southampton University  (B.A.Fine Art)

2014 onwards   Contemporary Artist

My practice explores the emotional dynamics of ‘living’ based on my own experiences. ‘Woman’ is the central focus of my work, examining the shifting relationship between forms, expressions and emotions. Each painting moves between figuration and abstraction allowing the work itself to dictate the process and its final state. At times I allow the mostly central protagonist to disappear.

I work from memory, sometimes guided by sketches but sometimes without, relying on the immediacy of feeling and the malleability of the paint. To capture an instant of emotion, I begin with rapid acrylic painting. Subsequently, each piece unfolds organically, through layering, shifting the paint or transitioning into oils to deepen the hue and complexity of the emotion being represented. My process is dynamic and responsive; technique evolves determined by the work. There is no a fixed formula. Movement, texture, and gesture are as essential as subject matter in giving substance and weight to these portraits of emotions.

Life exists in beauty and brutality, and all the ambiguous shades in between. My paintings are not adornments but confrontations. In their imperfection, they aim to provoke a visceral response of understanding or unease, of intimacy or rejection. I want them to encourage the viewer toward reflection, dialogue, and speculation