Cherry Pickles

Born in Bridgend, Wales, I did a mathematics degree in Northern Ireland before going to art school at Chelsea and the Slade. After that I had various bits of art scool teaching and residencies, most substantially; Falmouth School of Art, Corsham and St Andrews University. 

In the early/mid 80's I had the chance to live in Berlin and got to see the groundbreaking  "Zeitgeist"  exhibition in the ruin of the Riechstag. 

At about that time I moved to Wales and started teaching at Cardiff Art School and did some drawing workshops in Como, Italy. The first was with Gerhard Richter and the following year with Eric Fischl.

After Italy I was invited to take part in an International Artists residency at Omi, in Upstate NY. I was surprised and impressed by the way Americans were able to paint as if there were no problems attached to it.

I have had several Greek Government Scholarships where I travelled the country extensively sometimes with my family and sometimes alone. I also exhibited the work there; initially landscape and then self portraits.

I taught at Cardiff for a number of years and took time out to do a Residency at Altos De Chavon,  a very strict and impressive art school in the Dominican Republic. The school was housed in a replica Italian village designed by Felini's set designer and ranked as one of the 9 best art schools in the world.

More recently, I did the Guston McKim residency in Yaddo, which is one of the oldest artists and writers colonies in the US. It's former residents include; Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, Guston, John Cheever, Truman Capote, Patricia Heysmith etc. I used some of these characters in my self portraits, and with the help of other residents, re-enacted some scenes which may or may not have happened between them.

I'm currently teaching at the Royal Drawing School London and painting in West Wales.