Janette Kerr’s paintings grow from lived experience on the margins of land and sea. Deeply embedded in place, her work is shaped by direct encounter with wild coastal weather and the elemental forces that define it, wind-scoured headlands, storm-tossed waters, shifting light and the sound and silence of the landscape itself.

She works en-plein-air and in the studio, often from Shetland and other northern environments, bringing an intimate eye to the rhythms of sea and sky. Kerr’s practice sits between representation and abstraction: she does not seek meticulous views of terrain, but responds to what is sensed, movement, weather and atmosphere, with paint that is both visceral and precise.

Her recent bodies of work relate to ideas such as the historic State of Sea concept, exploring how ocean conditions, wind and wave interact and transform the surface of water and experience. The resulting paintings convey immediacy and presence, with trace marks and layered surface revealing the physicality of process as much as the place depicted.