Tamara Williams is a British contemporary painter known for her evocative, dream-like semi-abstract landscapes, where memory, place, colour and texture come together in imagined environments rather than literal depictions of the natural world.
Originally trained in Graphic Design, Williams graduated from Kingston in 1986 before working for a number of London design agencies. In 1990, she established her own design agency, developing it into a successful commercial business before making the transition to full-time painting in 2021. That background in design continues to inform her approach, particularly in her attention to composition, balance, pattern and structure, even as her painting process has become increasingly intuitive and experimental.
Her landscapes are shaped by accumulated impressions rather than specific locations. The Thames near her North Surrey studio, the South Downs, Cornwall and Cumbria all filter into the work, reappearing as fragments of colour, mark-making and layered texture. Rather than recording a particular view, Williams is interested in capturing the sensation of being within a landscape and allowing each painting to develop into a place of its own.
Materials play an important role in this process. Plaster, wood panels, canvas and printmaking tools allow her to build, carve, sand and work back into the surface, giving the paintings a physical quality that sits alongside their atmospheric character. Her earlier experience with printmaking also remains embedded in the work, with natural materials and textured surfaces becoming an integral part of her visual language.
Since moving into painting full-time, Williams’ work has gained increasing recognition and is now widely collected and sold through galleries across the UK. Her painting Leave No Trace was selected for the 2025 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and she has also been shortlisted for the 2026 British Art Prize.
Working most days from her studio beside the River Thames, Williams continues to explore the space between representation and abstraction, creating landscapes that feel familiar without belonging to any single place. In this interview, she discusses the shift from commercial design to painting, her relationship with materials and experimentation, the influence of the natural world, and how her understanding of success has changed since becoming a full-time artist.
Was there a particular point when painting began to feel like more than a parallel creative practice?
Yes. It was the switch from making ad hoc pieces for myself to creating work consistently for buyers. The moment I had to plan a new collection to meet a deadline, just as I used to with a commercial creative brief, everything changed A deadline creates focus, and it means you have to show up every day. Around the same time, a couple of galleries contacted me to create collections for them. I was thrilled, but quite overwhelmed at the thought of creating a body of work for an exhibition because I’d never done anything like that before.
What interests you about keeping a sense of place without describing it too literally?
I want to capture the experience rather than the reality of a landscape. I work intuitively, and I see more when I’m not focused on the detail. I love the simplification of pattern, space, colour and texture from the places I’ve visited, so the paintings become my imagined places. I want each one to take me somewhere different, somewhere I hadn’t planned to be. If it works, it can do the same for the viewer and capture a moment they didn’t know existed for them.
Are you drawn more to particular locations, or to the emotional response a landscape creates?
I don’t paint anywhere specific. My paintings are more of an amalgamation of different thoughts and ideas, so all those landscapes, the Thames, the South Downs, Cornwall and Cumbria, live in my subconscious as a big melting pot of subliminal inspiration. The riverbank near my studio, with its tangle of nature and graphic shapes, definitely finds its way in, deconstructed into abstracted layers of texture. The only loose connection with a specific place would be colour, and that’s influenced more by the time of year than by the place itself.
Describe how you plan and start a painting.
The planning and composition take the most time. My sketches act like a design blueprint in my head, and having a vision of the finished piece gives me the confidence to go ‘off-road’. At this point, I’m painting intuitively and letting the paint guide me. That’s the fun bit. I lose myself completely in the landscape I’m creating. It’s all-consuming. I keep going until it feels right: harmonious colours, a myriad of textural layers and a strong, balanced composition. The finished work is often very different from the original vision I started with.
Are there materials that immediately change your mood or the way you work?
Plaster, definitely. It was a revelation when I discovered it, and it acts like a third pair of hands in the studio. I can change the surface before I even start painting. I whip the mixture to add bubbles before casting, and I play with surface marks while it’s still buttery. Once the paint has dried, I work back into it, carving and sanding with printmaking tools. Wood panels change the way I work in a different way. It’s bigger brushes, bigger carving tools and bigger movements, and that change in scale challenges me to think about every mark and every detail.
Has leaving the client and brief environment given you a different relationship with uncertainty and experimentation?
Having the freedom to daydream, with the space to think and imagine without interruption, is liberating. It’s a far cry from my days as a designer working to a deadline. Plaster taught me to embrace unpredictability. It’s a volatile medium, and I had plenty of pieces that didn’t work, so rather than waste them, I started painting on the reverse. Those quick abstract studies started my whole journey with painting. That said, I’ve brought some of the structure back because planning collections to deadlines gives me focus. And the best thing is sometimes the worst thing too: creative thinking doesn’t have an off switch!
Which side of the landscape interests you most, the calm or the unruly?
Both live in my work. I’m drawn to the tangle of nature along the riverbank and the tapestry of pattern and texture in the landscapes I’ve visited. I deconstruct these places into colourful layers using painterly marks punctuated with contrasting weights of line work. But the landscape is also where I go when I’m stuck. It’s incredibly calming. I love being outside, thinking and daydreaming; looking rather than doing. I have an Einstein quote on my wall that I refer to when I have a creative block: ‘Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.’
Leave No Trace was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2025. What was that like, and did it change anything practically, in terms of enquiries, gallery interest or how people see the work?
It was a childhood dream come true. I’d only entered once before, so when the email came through, I went a little crazy. Varnishing Day is something I’ll never forget. It starts with a church service in Piccadilly that is full of tradition, with inspiring speeches connecting the year’s theme to the changes we’re all living through. You really feel part of something historic. I held my catalogue and deliberately didn’t look for my painting because I wanted to enjoy everything and come across it naturally. I visited twelve times and saw something different every time.
Practically, it made a difference to my online sales, my subscribers and probably to my galleries too.
I think it changed the way collectors find my work. In fact, it was around this time that I had a painting included in the Art Below campaign, which appeared on a huge poster at Hyde Park Underground station. A year later, I had a couple visit my Open Studio who had first found me through that poster. One of the paintings they bought is featured in this year’s campaign, this time at Pimlico. It’s a lovely story and goes to show that you never know where buyers might find you.
Do you see printmaking, plaster and natural materials as extensions of your painting, or as separate areas to develop?
They’re very much part of the same practice. Printmaking is where it all began. I couldn’t get to the print workshops, and I didn’t have a press at home, so I looked for other ways to transfer images and discovered plaster. Painting on plaster started my journey with painting. When I wanted to work bigger, I transferred the same paint and print techniques onto wood panels and canvas, still using printmaking tools to make marks. Working onto natural materials adds a textural narrative that threads its way through most of my work.
Having built up and sold a successful design business, did you have an idea of what success as a visual artist would look like?
No, not at all. The worlds of design and art feel very different to me. I’d trained to be a designer and immersed myself in that world for years, so I knew what success looked like. As an artist, you work on your own, and I think the parameters for success are far less well-defined.
I think that, to be successful, you need to be recognised, and this is easier when you have a strong visual voice. Showing up every day helps facilitate this over time.
I guess, for me, I feel like I’ve had a successful day when I’m happy with what I’ve created.
You sell through events and open studios, alongside galleries. How do those different routes to a buyer compare?
All the events I do now are through my gallery in London. I’m so lucky to be represented by them at the Affordable Art Fairs in Battersea and Hampstead, and this year in Sydney too. I do, however, open my studio once a year as part of Surrey Artists Open Studios, and it’s something I always look forward to. I have my regular art lovers and buyers visiting, as well as people passing by and more serious collectors who come specifically to buy paintings. It’s a great way to understand what buyers love, and quite often it’s not what you think.
If you could remove one assumption people commonly make about landscape painting, what would it be?
That a landscape painting must show you a real place. Mine are imagined places, built from memories and feelings rather than a single view. I’d like people to see them as an experience rather than a record: something that takes you somewhere you hadn’t planned to be. The more you look, the more you see.
