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From farmhouses to dolphins, wine bottles and Caribbean sunsets, the East Gallery in the Winding House in New Tredegar was filled with colour and warmth. 

This was Marie Davison’s exhibition which showed at the museum throughout April and was aptly titled The World Around Me, given the artist’s life was the influence. 

“I’m inspired by the world around me,” said Marie, who showed 60 pieces of work featuring places as close as the Welsh hills to as far afield as Guadeloupe. 

“I’m very lucky to be given an opportunity to put my work in the Winding House and I’m very, very pleased about that,” she added.

Marie, 80, who lives in Oakdale, took up painting when she retired and was spurred on to learn how to draw after one of her grandchildren highlighted that her illustrations could be improved.

“I was drawing stuff for the kids one day,” said Marie, when one of her grandchildren said, “Grandma, you can’t tell if it’s a cat or a cow.

“I thought ‘time I did something about it’,” she added. 

A year of art classes followed, but Marie is largely self-taught.

She uses a sketchbook to capture things she is inspired by and then uses the sketches as the basis for her acrylic or watercolour paintings. 

Though she has sold a number of paintings at the exhibition and has sent work to Lanzarote and Australia, it is a hobby and not a business – a great way to capture her life at home and abroad.

Art is a part of Marie’s social life too, as she is part of a small art group in Cwmfelinfach. 

Marie attributes her success to determination but she adds, there are many other people with artistic talents.

“There [are] some very talented people in these valleys,” she said. 

And maybe there are some undiscovered talents too who Marie would encourage to pick up a paintbrush or a pencil. 

“If you think you can’t do it, just go and have a go,” she said, “There was nobody more useless than me.”

Marie can be contacted at marie@lorelei.org.uk

The Winding House has a changing programme of exhibitions in the East Gallery. More information can be found here.