North-east Scotland-based painter Helen Forrest is January’s featured artist at Larks Gallery, Ballater.

A life-long painter, Helen is known for ‘painting from the heart’, treating the medium like a visual diary, resulting in work that is a result of her individual story, quirks, techniques and way of seeing things – showing a love for life and a reflective nature, with subject matter ranging from quirky portraiture to intuitive land and seascapes.

Helen takes inspiration from the Scottish coast and countryside and changing light of the North East, with her expressive paintings reflecting the ever-changing moods of countryside and the artist herself, in work of vibrant colour, simple form and a creative use of texture.