Sally Pudney is a landscape painter working in an expressive realistic style. Her paintings focus on the landscapes, rivers, coast and estuaries of East Anglia, and the ancient trackways of Southern England. She works in acrylic on board, often with added oil pastel, and also in soft pastel.
During her early teaching career in Norfolk she painted landscapes in watercolour, but Sally began to paint seriously in acrylic in 2005. Since then she has exhibited in mixed exhibitions at the Haylett’s Gallery in Maldon, the Geedon Gallery at Fingringhoe, and Church Street Gallery in Saffron Walton, and at other exhibitions in Essex and Suffolk. Her work has also been exhibited at the Buckenham Galleries in Southwold for a number of years.
Her work has been short-listed for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. She holds regular Open Studio events at her home in Lexden.
“The focus of my interest in painting is light and colour. I love painting the huge East Anglian skies, the quiet lanes, the woodlands and the little boats around the estuaries of Essex and Suffolk. I try to capture the way light falls on the surface of water and mud, and the colours, shadows and movement of trees and fields against those vast skies.”
Sally has undertaken a number of painting projects in the last few years:
Twelve Months in an Essex Wood
Four Seasons on the Stour.
On the Edge: The North Sea Project
Twelve Months in an Essex Field
Essex Paths & Bridleways
Twelve Months on an Essex Island
In 2023 and 2024 Sally worked on a Family History painting project. Her Pudney family have lived in North Essex since the earliest recorded mention of the name in 1379, and Sally visited and painted the places where they lived. The book – ESSEX GIRL – containing all the resulting paintings and the story of the family through six centuries is available in the website shop.
Sally spent time in 2024 and 2025 experimenting with different media and surfaces, sizes, techniques and plein air painting out of doors. She is now regularly painting in soft pastel, and mixed media as well as acrylic.
Sally’s painting project for 2025 was Twelve Months on an Essex Country Estate – visiting and painting at Markshall each month. The book featuring all the paintings, plus notes about what she saw and heard each month, and pastel drawings of natural items that she picked up on her visits, will be available later in the spring of 2026.
“I love to be outside in the natural world and I hope my paintings convey something of this life-enhancing pleasure to the viewer.”
Since 2012 Sally has organised (along with Graham Bell) annual Arts Festivals showing work by invited professional artists and makers each year. In 2019 they launched a new venture, the Anglian Arts Project. The first exhibition, featuring eight professional artists, was at the The Sentinel Gallery, and since then there have been regular exhibitions. For the past four years there have been two shows each year. See the Anglian Art page for future exhibitions and information.