Home is where the art is for award winning Jacky

An artist, who spent several years living Down Under, has returned to her roots to paint a Lancashire landscape that is so familiar to her.

Now Jacky Murtaugh is seeing the mills and hills of her hometown of Burnley from a completely different perspective. She is painting them with a fresh eye and her work will be going on display at an exhbition next month.

And the show, which runs from Saturday, April 1st to Saturday, April 29th, is aptly entitled Return To The Fold.

This will be Jacky's first solo exhibition in the UK after her dream to become an artist was fulfilled when she went to live in Australia in 2009.

Her first solo show “Illuminate” won rave reviews and she was even a finalist and winner of the South Australian Living Artist Award in the Emerging Artist category along with winning several other awards in Australia.

Jacky has built a reputation for being unconventional, becoming renowned for her vibrant and richly coloured paintings of nature and sparkling portrayals of water and sunlight.

And it was a painting she saw at Towneley Hall, The Sun Had Closed the Winter's Day, by Joseph Farquharson, that inspired her to paint in oil.

Inspired by nature but also the austere images of old mills and cobble streets, Jacky combines the two in her paintings.

Jacky said: "It is great to be back home and my first exhibition reflects how I am seeing everything that is so familiar with new eyes."

Return to the Fold runs from Saturday, April 1st until Saturday, April 29th. There is an open preview event to Meet the Artist from 1pm to 3pm on the launch day.

All are welcome and wine and nibbles will be served. For more information about the exhibition please go to

http://www.arteology.co.uk/return-to-the-fold/

Jacky's work can be viewed on her website at www.jackymurtaugh.com.