Christian Wharton is a watercolour artist.
She specialises in painting water in its many forms and environments, such as waterfalls, waves, streams, rivers, lakes, rock pools and splashes.
Christian also paints landscapes, particularly where water is involved.
The Spectator magazine said of her work:
“Her mature technique is as transparent and dazzling as the element she paints”.
For many years, Christian has been painting water in watercolour.
Her landscapes of Scotland, England and Wales always include water – usually moving powerfully in waterfalls and waves, but also tranquilly in rock pools and streams.
Born in 1937, Christian received an M.A. from St. Andrews after which she studied art at La Grande Chaumere in Paris and etching at Regent Street Polytechnic in London.
She has had eight solo exhibitions at several London galleries, including the Barbican. Her work has been bought by leading figures in the world of business, politics, law and medicine – such as Simon Hornby, Sir Alistair Grant, Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn and Lord and Lady Baker. Christian’s work is also in hospitals and hospices, including St. Mary’s Paddington and University College Hospital.
She has twice visited Bhutan, in 1998 and 2002 and was enthralled by the unique combination of people, landscape and architecture which inspired a quantity of new paintings. Many of these were used to illustrate her book, Painting Water in Watercolour, published by David and Charles, which came out in 2003.
In 1984 she moved to Skelmersdale, Lancashire, where she spent the next 22 years as a member of the meditation community there. Members of this group meet twice daily to perform an advanced system of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation but have their own houses, careers and independent interests. She found the group supportive – in her words, “It helped me on every level, from the spiritual to the practical. It produced a huge development in my work.”
In 2006, she moved to the Scottish Borders and from 2009 spent two years travelling. After spending time in India, USA, New Zealand and Australia, she returned to the UK in March 2011 and has since settled in Berwick-upon-Tweed where she was hoping to build a house based on the ancient Indian system of architecture, known as Vastu, which was imported to the West by Maharishi.
After some setbacks she managed to find her ideal plot with a sea view and a stream. The house was ready by the end of 2016 and she moved in at the start of 2017.
Since then has been developing a garden and writing. She has found the house lives up to its promise of being auspicious and supportive of all creativity. It is a very happy place.
Her novel, Tomato in a Black Hole came out in 2020 – a hilarious account of antics in the Art World of the early 21st century with a love affaire thrown in that has readers laughing and crying.
Her memoir, Dancing on the Moon came out in 2023 and recounts the vicissitudes of her life as well as her growing involvement with the TM movement.
At present she is working on another book to clarify and explain the connection between the advances of modern physics with spiritual values – present working title is Angels and Quarks.
She is the proud mother of two daughters, has six grandchildren and one great grand-child.
Together with her earlier book, Painting Water in Watercolour, 2003, her published works are all available on Amazon.
Many of the paintings on the site are available for sale.
Prices range from £400 to £10,000 – for a price list please contact the artist.
Some of the paintings are available as prints.
Copyright © Christian Wharton. All rights reserved.