The latest exhibition at Trinity’s Hub Gallery is a selection of drawings, paintings and screen prints, chosen from Caroline Assheton’s studio, to appeal to children.

Throughout her life, beauty, health, light and colour have underpinned Caroline’s creativity. She has been influenced by the drawings, paintings and the exuberant nonsense poems of Edward Lear. Her more recent work includes drawing very precise silhouettes, painted in jewel-like colours, some of which she has developed into designs for wallpaper for a child’s room.

She enjoys sharing her interest in wildlife and depicting joyful scenarios from her imagination to uplift the viewer, bringing beauty and colour into, at times, a grey world.

As a child, Caroline loved staying with her paternal grandmother in Downham and painting alongside her. Growing up, she was surrounded by art which made a strong impression. She has vivid memories of visiting the sculptor, costume designer and artist Mary Kent Harrison, whose work featured in books by George Orwell. Her maternal grandparents were friends with the artist Paul Maze, who had met Winston Churchill in the trenches and encouraged him to paint. They supported Maze, collecting his drawings and watercolours for their home in Berkshire.

Caroline decided to study traditional drawing at Signorina Simi’s academy in Florence when she was 17. She learnt how to sharpen a charcoal stick with sandpaper and then how to draw classical sculptures, measuring carefully by eye and extending her arm, just as artists were taught from the Renaissance onwards. After three months, she was allowed to progress and draw a live model (but strictly clothed!

Signorina Simi had begun her own career by assisting her father in his studio as a child. For Caroline, Simi was a huge inspiration, still teaching at the age of 93, sharing knowledge passed down generations of Florentine artists.

Caroline returned to London for a foundation year at Camberwell School of Art, where she was taught how to paint using their limited earth and classical coloured palette. This was followed by three years of further study, painting at the City and Guilds. Here the colours encouraged were brighter and more modern, but still painting traditional still lives and the life model. She started to exhibit her work at commercial galleries in Chelsea and received commissions. In the late ‘80s, she was having solo shows in West-End galleries.

In 2015, she moved to Lancashire permanently and now has a studio in Downham Village Hall.

For further information on buying her work or commissions, please email .