Sherras Clark

Born in Kingston-upon-Thames, Elisabeth was a professional singer and dancer before taking up a traditional training at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, graduating with a Certificate of Fine Art and National Diploma of Design. After spending a further year at Westminster College of Education, she became a full-time Art and Design teacher at Tiffin Girls Grammar, then Head of Creative Textiles at Tolworth Girls. She found that painting flowers, both botanically and as large colourful images on silk gave her the opportunity to express her love for the movement, colour and detailed observation that she had enjoyed earlier in life. She has taught botanical and flower painting on several courses in the UK and internationally and has been Artist in Residence at Ulluru, Australia and Nant y Coy Arts, in Wales.

Elisabeth twice accompanied plant collecting expeditions as a freelance botanical artist - to the rainforests of Guyana in South America and on the 1993 Oxford University Mobeta-Moliwe expedition to Cameroon in Central Africa where she illustrated some of the plants collected there. For this work she won two Silver Grenfell Medals from the Royal Horticultural Society and followed up with a solo exhibition at the Royal Geograhic Society in London.

She now teaches and lectures in art, textiles and botanical illustration in Britain and abroad. She specialises in botanic and flower painting, working from live specimens in their natural habitat overseas and in British gardens. She also engraves on glass and is a past member of the Guild of Glass Engravers. Her interest in travel has taken her to the Himalayas, Thailand, New Zealand, Morocco, Guyana and Cameroon. She prefers to spend the southern summers in Australia.

United Kingdom Exhibitions

The Royal Horticultural Society, London
The Chelsea Physic Garden
Royal Geographical Society, London,
Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, London
Royal Academy, London
Federation of British Artists, London
Glaziers Hall, London (Glass Engraving)
Leighton House, London (Glass Engraving)
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
Yorkshire Artists, Leeds
Denman College, Marsham, near Abingdon, Oxon.
Somerville College, Oxford
Nature in Art, Gloucester
Mottisfont Abbey
West Dean Gardens
Christies Open Exhibition, Chichester
Nant y Coy Arts Gallery, Pembrokeshire
Cork Street Gallery, Mayfair, London
Guildford Cathedral, Surrey
Ox Market Gallery, Chichester
The Shirley Sherwood Gallery, The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Gardens

International Exhibitions

Australia

Cuppacumbalong Gallery, Canberra, Australia
Sydney Botanical Gardens, Australia
Canberra Botanic Gardens, Australia
CSIRO Discovery, Canberra, Australia
Victoria Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania

New Zealand

The Pump House, Auckland, New Zealand
The Flagstaff Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

USA

Flowers and Beyond, Cincinatti, USA (Silk Painting)
Whitman Gallery, San Francisco, USA

Germany

Palmengarden, Frankfurt

Also in:
Sweden
Austria
Japan

Artist in Residence

Nant y Coed Arts Gallery, Pembrokeshire
Mulgara Gallery, Ayers Rock, Australia

Tutored Courses, Publications and Memberships

Tutored Courses

Whitman Gallery, San Francisco
Master Class, Christchurch, New Zealand
CSIRO Discovery, Canberra, Australia
Botanic Gardens, Canberra, Australia
West Dean College, Chichester, W. Sussex
Denman College(WI) Oxfordshire
Couldoran, Kishorn, Scotland
East Clandon, Surrey

Publications

Her work is in the "The Shirley Sherwood Collection of Contemporary Botanical Art" and is illustrated in her book "A Passion for Plants" and "Old and New South American Botanical Art".

Elisabeth also features in The Chelsea Physic Garden publication "Flower Paintings from the Apothecaries' Garden".

Her studies and sketchbook from the Mobeta Moliwe expedition to Cameroon are held in the archives of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Memberships

Society of Floral Painters
Society of Botanical Artists
Guildford Art Society
Guildford Arts

Former memberships

Fellow of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegeum Society
American Society of Botanical Artists
Wildlife and Botanical Artists, Australia