BIO
Artist Biography
Felicity Talman is a British artist based in rural West Wales. Her work centres on close observation of the natural world, often focusing on vegetal forms encountered in daily life. Themes of time, transience, and presence underpin her practice, inviting quiet attention and reflection.
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Working primarily with soft pastels on sanded paper, Felicity draws on the medium’s tactility and immediacy to create intimate studies of form, light, and colour. Her drawings resist symbolic readings, instead offering a space for encounter with the overlooked or ephemeral.
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In 2025, Felicity received the Unison Young Artist Award at the Pastel Society 126th Annual Exhibition for her drawing In the Night Garden. Across 2024 and 2025, her work was selected for exhibition at the Pastel Society Annual Exhibitions at the Mall Galleries, London. Felicity is an Associate Member of the Pastel Society of America and a member of ArtCan.

CV AND ARTISTÂ STATEMENT
ARTIST STATEMENT
My drawings begin with stillness. They present encounters with organic forms that are fading, overlooked, or quietly transforming. These subjects often emerge from my domestic and garden surroundings, appearing not through searching, but intuitive noticing and a deep sense of personal encounter.
I’m not interested in using flowers symbolically. Instead, I approach them as living forms in transition, fragile, fading, and often overlooked. These are not botanical studies, but a type of still life grounded in personal encounter and attentive observation.
The close connection I feel to both my subject and materials is vital to my practice. Soft pastels offer an immediacy and tactility that mirrors the physical presence of the subjects I depict. The dust produced during the drawing process is reminiscent of pollen, physically connecting the work to natural cycles.
I work on an intimate scale, inviting a slower kind of looking. Through drawing, I engage in an act of witnessing, attentively observing and responding to my subjects’ fragility, dynamism, and unpredictability. This attention to fragility and transformation invites contemplation of impermanence as a fundamental part of our shared experience with nature. Rather than offer answers or narratives, these are quiet images that invite slow looking and thoughtful reflection on the delicate and often unnoticed relationships we share with the natural world.
EDUCATION
2019 - Present: The Open College of the Arts. (OCA) / The Open University (OU) – BA (Hons) in Fine Art
AWARDS
2025: Unison Young Artist Award (Pastel Society Annual Exhibition)
2020: SAA Artists of the Year - Best Young Still Life Award
2020: SAA Artists of the Year - Best Young Animal/Wildlife Award
EXHIBITIONS
2025: Vegetal Encounters, Chate Room at King Street Gallery, Carmarthen (16th May - 11th June)
2025: IAPS 46th Open Division, IAPS Webshow (Online)
2025: The Pastel Society 126th Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
2024: The Pastel Society 125th Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London.
2024: Finding Place Exhibition, Crawley.
2024: Crawley Summer Exhibition, Crawley.
2023:Memory, Absence and Experience, The Ancient Priors, Crawley
2022: 6th Annual Pure Color International Juried Exhibition of Pastel Paintings
2021: SAA Artists of the Year - Shortlisted in the Professional Abstract Category 

2020: SAA Artists of the Year
MEDIA AND PUBLICATIONS
2025: "Gardening as Artistic Practice," Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture (forthcoming)
2025: Work featured in Edge Zine Issue 14: Encounters (https://7ab5be74-4ae3-491b-bfd3-e1cfa3e085d8.usrfiles.com/ugd/7ab5be_4329b39ef32d4a02b5add71d0d20acfc.pdf)
2025: "Pastel Society Awards 2025," Unison Colour (https://www.unisoncolour.com/blog/pastel-society-awards-2025/)
2022: "Felicity Talman Inspired by Seaweed," Pastel Today (https://pasteltoday.com/2022/09/19/felicity-talman-inspired-by-seaweed/)
2022: Work featured in Creative Crawley Winter Drawing Workshop Brochure
2022: Featured in Artist Talk Magazine, Issue 20 (https://www.artisttalkmagazine.com/magazine-archive#&gid=1960309628&pid=20)
2021: Featured on OCA social media platforms and through partnerships with Leisure Painter and The Artist magazines
Professional Development
2025: Critical Context Course, Contemporary Art Academy
2025: ArtCan Member
2024: Personal Practice Course (Artist Support Pledge Scholarship), Contemporary Art Academy
2024: Associate Member, Pastel Society of America (ongoing)
2020–2021: Fine Art Programme Representative, OCA Periodic Review