Born in 1979 in Kent, Rebecca Westguard lived in West Sussex before moving to the North East of Scotland at the age of nine. She studied at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, where under the tuition of influential Joyce W.Cairns she was able to explore her admiration and fascination of the human form.
‘My studio life is a conversation in detail. With a stubbornness of wanting to know, a good life drawing I often get comfortably lost in. I navigate my way around the drawing until the form emerges with a process of transparency…with a kind of incessant structural mapping. So that in effect, there is evidence of my synthesis of thought.’
Trained as a painter, inspired by Florentine travels and her time spent at Hospitalfield House - Rebecca has concentrated her entire practice on the traditions of studying from life.
‘My subject is alive and breathes …the challenge of responding to the model and the subtle but essential differences within a day’s sitting captivate my attention. For me, drawing is a conversation with detail. Once complete, each piece evokes a memory of the day’s experience, intrinsically related to a sitter’s physical and emotional well-being.'
Rebecca received the John Kinross Scholarship on graduation in 2002 and has exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London. A prize winner at the National Open Art Competition & Aberdeen Artist Society, she has established and defined an inherent individual drawing style, with an innate sense of respect for the time-honoured tradition of life drawing.
‘The complexity and discipline presented in drawing the human form, such as the challenges within composition, proportion, developing a multitude of poses or relationships within male and female diptychs will always drive me to create. Sittings may reference historical contextual influences, personal reflection and environmental responses, or exposure to current political or social interest.’
Whilst maintaining her studio practice, Rebecca has taught the drawing Short Courses at Gray’s School of Art since 2005 and has doubled the student intake since taking on responsibility for coordinating the Short Course Provision in 2015. She established and developed the Hospitalfield Trusts Masterclass Programme 2009 - 12 and works as a freelance artist teaching life drawing and portfolio building. She continues to offer masterclasses in her discipline.
