Nina Royle

I won the Aidan Threlfall Scholarship in 2010. With its help, I travelled first to India and then to Japan, for three months respectively. My proposal to visit these countries was based on an interest developed in my paintings, about how colour use in art is linked to and affected by its surrounding geography, climate and culture. My specific choice to go India and Japan was influenced by my longstanding interest in traditional art forms from each country and also their radically different colour cultures. This took me to a series of places where colour in its production or use was particularly significant.

I also studied alongside two artists. In India, I worked with Ajay Sharma, an Indian miniature painter and in Japan, with Richard Steiner, a Japanese woodblock printer. As a way to gain a deeper understanding of the cultures that I was in and also a practical knowledge of how colour in art relates to them this experience was invaluable.

Having studied my whole life in a western, academic system, I can’t explain how eye-opening my time away was and the profound effect it has had on my work. Since my return I’ve continued to work as a practising artist, making paintings and a series of artists books on colour. I have also been awarded the Dora Carrington scholarship for studying my Masters degree at the Slade School of Art.