Penny Gould

Biography

Penny grew up amongst the beautiful, steep-banked lanes of rural Devon strewn with wild flowers, all at child’s eye level; this laid the foundations of her lifelong fascination with plants.  Inspired by her visit to the 2005 Shirley Sherwood exhibition “A New Flowering: 1000 years of Botanical Art” at the Ashmolean Museum, Penny completed the Society of Botanical Artists Diploma with distinction in 2011 and was accepted as a member in 2013.

Working in watercolour, Penny takes inspiration from the wild and cultivated flora around her Oxfordshire home. Time spent studying, drawing and painting a plant is exciting and rewarding; there is always something new to discover, strengthening her appreciation of the subject.  Penny values the discipline of botanical painting and finds that in nature, reality can be stranger, more beautiful and more fascinating than fantasy.

Penny joined the Society of Floral Painters, now working on their committee and exhibiting annually at their Chichester exhibition.  She is a painting member of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society, exhibiting with them at the Chelsea Physic Garden in August 2015.  As a member of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden Florilegium Group, she took part in their inaugural exhibition in June 2015 at the Oxford Botanic Garden. Penny regularly exhibits with the Society of Botanical Artists at Westminster and in Palmengarten, Frankfurt.

She has undertaken a number of private commissions and has paintings in private collections in the UK, on the continent and the USA. Penny teaches botanical illustration classes in Oxfordshire and runs summer workshops focussing on watercolour botanical work.

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