Natalie Toplass

Natalie is a British painter whose work explores the beauty and emotion of the natural world through large-scale, immersive compositions. Raised in Cheshire, she began drawing flowers from her parents’ florist shop as a child an experience that sparked her lifelong fascination with form, colour, and texture.

She earned a Fine Art degree and a postgraduate qualification in Stage and Set Design and then Natalie worked as a scenic artist, a role that took her around the world and inspired her use of dramatic scale and composition. Since moving to Shropshire in 2003, she has developed a distinctive practice blending observation, storytelling, and experimentation.

Her paintings often feature narrative elements drawn from dilapidated country houses and natural finds, evoking wonder and sensory connection. Natalie’s work has been exhibited internationally.

Artist Statement

Whilst my work is discernibly representative, I wish the viewer to feel drawn into what becomes for me a speculative visual story combining colour, whimsy, natural life and occasionally humour. The medium is oil built up in many layers to create a vivid and translucent finish, this

process also supports a depth and intensity of colour enhancing the drama.

I’ve been trying to get to the core of why I have these recurring themes running through my work and after much ruminating I’ve realised the natural life element is enormously important. The natural world displays incredible diversity and tenacity adjacent with transience and fragility. You see the interconnectedness of nature, that you are part of something bigger, something vital that pays no attention to theology or wealth, and I delight in that liberation. Adjacent to these core values, occasionally acting as a kind of ‘theatrical’ setting, is a still life aspect to my work, drawing ideas from neglected or discarded objects and places- creating a visual connection. It’s these aspects that develop their own provenance, their own stories that I find interesting, and realising that a narrative is fundamental to my painting by combining the two is fascinating and ever evolving.