Francesca Owen in the attic gallery
9 May – 6 June 2026
Francesca Owen
Moonlight Garden
oil on canvas
135 x 185cm £7950
Francesca Owen
Salvation is the Garden
oil on canvas
135 x 185cm £7950
Francesca Owen
Oranges of Seville
oil on canvas
120 x 120cm £4750
Francesca Owen
Tree of Life
oil on canvas
120 x 120cm £4750
Francesca Owen
The Flow of Nature
oil on canvas
120 x 120cm £4750
Francesca Owen
Tending the Flowers
oil on canvas
80 x 60cm £2250
Francesca Owen
May Flower
oil on canvas
80 x 60cm £2250
Francesca Owen
In Search of Peace
oil on canvas
80 x 60cm £2250
Francesca Owen
Reclining Figure
oil on canvas
30 x 30cm £950
Francesca Owen
Lemon Yellow in the Morning
oil on canvas
30 x 30cm £950
Francesca Owen
Spring Dress
oil on canvas
30 x 30cm £950
Francesca Owen
Wisteria and hibiscus bloom
oil on canvas
131 x 110cm £5700
Francesca Owen
The Bell Flower
oil on canvas
117 x 107cm £5500
Francesca Owen
The Crimson Tulip
oil on canvas
120 x 120cm £4750
Francesca Owen
In The Garden
oil on two canvases (diptych)
160 x 200cm £8900
Francesca Owen
Homage to the Rose
oil on canvas
30 x 30cm £950
Francesca Owen
A Flower Prayer
oil on canvas
30 x 30cm £950
Francesca Owen
In the Spring Garden
oil on canvas
30 x 30cm £950
‘It was the very idea of the garden which had conjured up the magic and the fascination in the first place’
My childhood garden- I have no photos but a strong memory of it in my head and heart. Through the back door you walk out onto a patio, pass a church pew covered in ivy and up a step with stone spheres on either side to a half acre of green. There was a statue of a lady, a panda by the bamboo and fruit trees: apples, plums and pears. I would play in the garden for hours, making up games, collecting sticks and leaves and petals and watching the dust when the sun would sparkle through it. We all have memories of childhood, unique to us and which shape our world. I was led by my heart and my mind to think of my childhood garden because it was a simpler time before the masquerade and circus parades of adult life. Gardens are a kind of utopia, a place of memory, love and healing and I want to convey love, beauty, nature.
The days when a storm is raging and rain is falling, are the days when my mind is most clear for painting. I begin and enjoy the feeling of the colours gliding on the surface of the canvas- a world of possibilities which go any which way it chooses to. Gardens, figures and flowers make their appearance. Here in West Cornwall, springtime comes early before it travels up country. The promise of spring is such a joy that you almost feel your heart jump up into your throat with happiness and relief. Thoughts of circling cartwheels, feeling hands pressed upon a carpet of soft grass, hair whizzing past shoulders, legs in the air until you land, the colours of the world spinning round. It is the desire to sit on the beach and eat an apple in the sun!
Life is beginning to pulsate, you see this in the flowers and the grass- if you look at borage closeup, its whiskers and blue veins show it. Snowdrops, daffodils, primroses, hyacinths, bluebells, garlic, scarlet pimpernel are radiant and the promise of foxgloves.
The triumph of spring is the reward for making it through winter and back again to feel the new life coming in. The glory in anticipation of the bulbs, planted in November and then forgotten about and then remembered as they reveal themselves. Every day that comes is a tease, so changeable, can you feel the warmth of the sun this time? Will the day stay overcast? Will the fog come in because the land is warming up and a sea mist is blowing in?
Monet said; “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece. I can only draw what I see. Everything I have earned has gone into these gardens”.
Spring
The promise of new life
Day light’s staying longer now
Feel the heat upon your skin
Face up to the sun
You are stronger now
Feel the greenness coming in
Summer
Daylight spins me round again
Let me sit and slumber
I’m in your presence
For a minute more
Bathed upon the light and shade
Of olive trees within your garden
In the dappled sun of the master
Don’t bring me back
Let me sit and slumber a little more
The olive trees were grainy
They pushed against my skin
For 200 years they observed the painters life
Don’t let me leave the garden
Two people sit observing
Soaking up the reverence
Their brushes fall on canvas
And still they cannot get near him
Let me stay in your garden
And soak up your light and life
The sun is burning strong
The shadows are purple, violet, crimson
Daylight spins me round again
Let me sit and slumber
For a minute more
But a child’s voice strikes my heart
Her golden hair, soft skin, green dress
Appears from the shadows of the ochre house
A boy next to her
My children
Awake me from my dream
But let me sit and slumber for a minute more
Under the olive tree in your garden
Daylight spins me round thrice more
It pushes me to go
My memory lives in your garden
Daylight spins me round again
Autumn
And so there was one cruel thing about the summer:
It came around too quickly and then it was gone.
There would be less time to play in the garden
and so she had to take the flowers inside to enjoy their delicacy,
the rest would be remembering…
Between Worlds
Winter
The garden was first and foremost within us all along,
even if we sat wondering where it had gone to
and most importantly when it would come back
Francesca Owen is an award-winning painter. A former student and recipient of two scholarships from the Slade school of fine art, including the Euan Uglow memorial scholarship and a full member of the St Ives Society of Artists.
Francesca’s paintings are now held with collectors and galleries across the U.K, Europe and America.
