Eleanor DORRIEN-SMITH

British-American artist Eleanor Dorrien-Smith graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2008 with a BA in Fashion with Print. For over a decade she worked as a fashion and textile designer, developing a strong instinct for line, colour and composition. In 2021 she returned to drawing and painting.

Eleanor’s paintings begin with walking, exploring, scrambling and swimming. She is drawn to coasts and archipelagos because they are ever-changing, with shifting dialogues between sea, sky and land. Her work is rooted in the landscapes of the Isles of Scilly, which she has known and returned to for more than three decades, as well as the salt marshes, creeks and dunes of the Norfolk and Cornish coasts.

Carved into her mind are the works of the early twentieth-century watercolourists in her family, while a tendency towards expressive colour and marks is a nod to her family across the pond. These influences come together in paintings that remain rooted in observed landscape while allowing colour, line and technique to create a sense of abstraction.

Eleanor is particularly interested in landscape as something immediate and ancient, constantly changing while retaining its underlying forms. Her connection to Scilly has deepened through an interest in its history, from Bronze Age settlements to lost landscapes and communities. Painting becomes a meditation on time, allowing her to step outside the present and consider all the lives that have been lived in a place.

Since 2023 Eleanor has exhibited in three consecutive Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, selected by Eileen Cooper RA, Hurvin Anderson RA and Christopher Le Brun PPRA. She has exhibited with Morgans, Messums and Nicholas Bowlby Gallery, and in 2026 has shown with Davina Barber, John Martin Gallery x Auto Amor, Messums West and Bowlby Fine Art.

“It’s a beautiful painting, fresh, lovely touch and full of light.”

Christopher Le Brun PPRA

Eleanor is based in Bristol working from her studio at home.