Biography
Serena was born in London and moved to Southwold in 1983. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1995.
Serena had her first solo exhibition in Southwold in 1996. A painting from this exhibition, Blue Southwold went on to become an instant best selling postcard in a card company.
In 1996/7 she opened her first gallery, relocating a year later to 16 Queen Street.
Since then, she has exhibited in Southwold every year for 24 years.
She has completed numerous commissions and projects and been part of many community charity events raising many thousands of pounds for the RNLI, Cancer Research UK and many local charities through her work.
Serena won the creative category for 'Woman of the Year' award from the Prince’s Youth Business Trust and then became the overall National Winner.
Her gallery has been voted number one best coastal gallery by Coast Magazine.
Her work is sold to customers from all around the world.
Her paintings have been described by her customers as original, bold, vibrant, inspiring and joyful.
Family history
Serena originally moved with her family to Southwold, Suffolk when she was twelve years old. After happy holidays in Southwold, as a family, they had all fallen madly in love with an unusual house on Ferry Road and moved to live here full time.
It was here, with the inspirational coastal views from her new home, that she really began to paint.
"My bedroom window suddenly overlooked the sea and the sand dunes, it was an incredible moment when I realised this was now my new home, I fell in love completely with my surroundings and this love for Southwold has never left me"
Serena's mother, Val was a potter and a chef so Serena was making and glazing her own ceramic tiles as a very young girl. Her earliest memories are all happy memories based around clay and food. Surrounded by a creative family, (her father, Derek, was a writer and her grandparents were both jewellers) her love of drawing and painting was encouraged wholeheartedly.
When they moved to Southwold the garage was turned into Serena's studio and she used some big decorators brushes she found in there, on her canvases which turned into her signature style of using broad brushstrokes and a love of vibrant colour. The garage had double doors that overlooked the marshes and the harbour. She gradually started to sell from her garage to local people and got her first commissions from here aged 15/16.
Serena credits her grandparents, who lived in Spain and her visits to Spain and the Mediterranean as having a huge influence on her paintings and her love of colour. She was and is still very inspired by the impressionists and fauvism movement of artists, who painted emotions, not just what they saw, and the fact they painted in glorious colour.
The idea of painting emotion or expressing emotion through colour in painting became very profound after Serena lost her Mother to cancer when she was 15 years old. A few years later she and her brother also lost their father and their home.
"I was and continue to be hugely inspired by the love, joy and memory of my beloved family, losing my mother at 15 years old and then my father and my home a few years later was devastating and life changing. At the time, I felt I only had my work to keep me going and I used all the wonderful memories we had as a family to create a focal point for my paintings. Choosing vibrant colour to express my love for my family, friends and my hometown has been a choice, to express joy and hope rather than get swallowed up in the pain and fragility of life.”
Gallery beginnings
"After Graduating from Edinburgh College of Art, I received a small Princes Trust Grant to buy my first kiln and I was able to start making what became my very popular ceramic fishes and tiles. After losing my parents and my home, under very difficult circumstances, I lived with friends and slowly built up a portfolio of work and gradually saved enough to rent a small basement studio space in Southwold. This was over 23 years ago, long before Southwold was as popular or as expensive as it is today.
This space was a dark, very smelly and very damp basement fish cellar with no natural light or windows. Customers had to navigate steep steps into a dark room. Undeterred and full of optimism, I was determined to turn this small odd space into my first Gallery, selling my paintings and drawings of Southwold. I managed to somehow encourage customers down into my gallery by hanging colourful ceramic fishes outside the fish cellar and they slowly found me and bought my work"
After one year Serena was able to relocate to a much better location in Queen Street, where she has been ever since.
Through sheer determination and passionate hard work her gallery in Southwold has now been established for over 20 years.
Awards
Serena has won numerous awards including winning the The National Prince’s Trust Visionary Woman award of 2001. The gallery also won the best creative category. Her gallery was shortlisted for Country Living's 'Best Rural Business' award and more recently, the Serena Hall gallery was also been voted number one best coastal interiors gallery by Coast Magazine.
Serena's work is held in private collections including that of His Majesty, King Charles III. Serena's paintings are now collected worldwide with recent paintings being shipped to Australia, New York and Tokyo.
She continues to be inspired by her love of colour and is always working on new and exciting projects.
