Serena Curmi is a UK-based painter of British and Maltese heritage. She trained at Falmouth College of Arts and her work has been selected for several prominent juried exhibitions, including the ING Discerning Eye and the Wells Art Contemporary. She has also received awards in the Columbia Threadneedle Prize and the Royal West of England Academy Annual Open Exhibition.
Serena spent much of her childhood living aboard a sailboat, travelling through parts of the United States, the Caribbean, Spain, Malta and the Isle of Man. Formed by this early experience, her practice reflects a deep familiarity with solitude and the quiet, humbling feeling of being in vast and uninhabited environments. This sensibility runs throughout her practice which spans both landscape painting and portraiture, tied together through a shared concern with the intangibility of memory and history. Her paintings allude to how our perceptions of the past are often idealised or reconstructed. This atmosphere is conveyed through her muted, faded palette and semi-transparent matte surfaces, demonstrating a sense of fragility and erosion.
The passage of time is further reflected through her use of historical photographic imagery in her mountain paintings and, more directly, in her ongoing research-based project on nineteenth-century asylum patients, which draws on archival material.
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PRIZES
2020 - Evolver Feature Prize, RWA 168 Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2018 - Prize Winner, The Columbia Threadneedle Prize - Mall Galleries, London
SOLO SHOWS
2020 - 'Uncharted' - Hybrid Gallery, Devon
2015 - 'Unsung' - Hybrid Gallery, Devon
PUBLICATIONS
2022 - British Journal of Psychiatry - Front cover image
2021 - Evolver Magazine - Article about ‘Bristol Asylum, Case Studies’ series, written by Fiona Robinson, President at RWA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025 - RWA 172nd Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2024 - RWA 171st Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2024 - Wells Art Contemporary - Wells Cathedral
2024 - Chelsea Art Society Summer Exhibition - London
2024 - ‘MINI’ - Canfas Gallery, Cardigan, Wales
2023 - The Guildford House Open Competition - Guildford
2023 - The London Art Fair - GBS Fine Art, London
2023 - The Lanesborough Hotel (Art Acumen), group show, London
2022 - ING Discerning Eye - Mall Galleries, London
2022 - RWA 169th Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2022 - ‘A Room of Her Own’ group show - Irving Gallery, Oxford
2022 - The London Art Fair - GBS Fine Art, London
2022 - 'Head to Head' group show - GBS Fine Art, Wells
2022 - ‘Near and Far’ - group show - Gala Fine Art, Aldeburgh
2022 - ‘A Wider Landscape’ - group show - The Alpine Club, London
2021 - Figurative Art Now, Mall Galleries - London
2020 - ING Discerning Eye - Mall Galleries - London
2020 - RWA 168th Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2020 - Ascent' group show - Irving Gallery, Oxford
2020 - 'A Change of Season' group show- The Gallery, Holt
2020 - The London Art Fair - GBS Fine Art, London
2019 - ING Discerning Eye - Mall Galleries - London
2019 - RWA 167th Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2018 - The Columbia Threadneedle Prize - Mall Galleries, London
2017 - ING Discerning Eye - Mall Galleries - London
2017 - RWA 165th Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2016 - 'A Singular Vision' - Hybrid Gallery, Devon
2015 - ING Discerning Eye - Mall Galleries - London
2014 - RWA 162nd Annual Open Exhibition - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2014 - 'Wonderland' group show - Hybrid Gallery, Devon
2014 - 'An Imaginary Friend' group show - Hybrid Gallery, Devon
2013 - 'Snow Time' group show- Hybrid Gallery, Devon
2012 - Bath Society of Artists Open Exhibition - The Victoria Art Gallery, Bath
2011 - 'Inside Out' - Jamaica Street Artists, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2011 - 'Red, Yellow, Blue' - Jamaica Street Artists, St George's, Bristol
2010 - Jamaica Street Artists Exhibition & Auction - Bristol Museum, Bristol
EDUCATION
1998 - 2001 - BA (Hons) Illustration - Falmouth College of Arts