I was born Victoria Mary Melbourne and grew up in a little town in Cheshire called Congleton. 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

Since childhood holidays with my family I have loved the sea 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 undergoing a massive creative and cultural  regeneration. I have  been a practicing artist here for the last nine years, ever since I graduated in 1999 from the Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury with a Fine Art Degree. 

Whilst I was at college I taught myself to paint with oils. Up until then I had sketched in pencil or used pastels. My love affair with oils continues and I work in a strongly figurative style. Reality may be given a little nip on the ankles by Surrealism - just to keep it awake, but it is never it's slave.  My paintings talk about the everyday concerns of people, be it relationships, personal appearance, visual aesthetics, grief, loneliness... or of course food.

I think that the motivations and inspirations of artists is an interesting subject and am now working with selected women artists to explore this concept through portraiture.

VICKY BRAND February 2008.