I was born Victoria Mary Melbourne and grew up in a little town in Cheshire.  You can read more about   my early life and careers before I became an artist in an article written for "Her Circle Ezine". This is an  American online magazine based in New York that publishes women's voices from around the world... 

 http://www.hercircleezine.com/archives/winter07/VickyBrand.html

  I have loved the sea since childhood holidays with my family and never wanted to leave. Now I feel  very lucky to be living and working in Folkestone; home of the stunning White Cliffs. It's a beautiful   place that's now undergoing a massive creative and cultural regeneration. I have  been a practicing artist here ever since I took very early retirement from my nursing career in January 2000. 

   Whilst studying for a fine art degree in the late 1990's I taught myself to paint with oils  and this love affair continues.  I work in a strongly figurative style, reality being given the occasional little nip on the ankles by Surrealism - just to keep it awake, but never being it's slave.  My paintings have always talked about people and their everyday concerns. Relationships, personal appearance, visual aesthetics, grief, loneliness... food.

 

I am now concentraiting on painting people, Portraiture. Trying to capture the essential essence that defines individuality.