Welcome to my website. I am a Commission Artist working from a studio in my garden in Glorious Bognor Regis by the sea in West Sussex. My paintings are full of colour and wit, and I work with care on each commission to create a work of art that is unique, personal and fun. I can paint anything if I can see it. So the sky is the limit.

When I paint Portraits, I ask each client to include something from their lives that best describes them. Something, perhaps, representing interests, ambitions, achievements or hobbies. This can be anything from a bottle of wine, to a Karaoke machine, to an elephant, to a pile of favourite books. Or all of them at once. I like to include clues for Sitters to remind them of who they were and what they were doing at the time of the portrait. “The Ross Family Portrait” is a good example of this. “The Flying Franckes” is a wonderful example of a joyful, imaginative and fun portrait of a couple who are summed up spectacularly well in this painting.

I paint Angels, which I call Every Day Angels. These are Angels that live alongside us and have the same Bad Hair Days, the same Happy One Minute Sad The Next Days and the same Pot Of Tea Days as us. See the “Domestic Angel”, who looks mutinous at the thought of doing any more chores around the house. I paint portraits of people as Angels too, which is very lovely. For example, the “Graduation Angel” was painted as a portrait of a student as an Angel on her very important Graduation Day.

I paint Religious themes too. These require some sideways thinking and some common sense. I am very interested in the link between the Divine and the Mundane. See the “Annunciation, Alexia and Katriona” where the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary are two 13 year old girls who are just being 13 year Old Girls. I asked them to pose for me, and this is what they did. There is my favourite, “The Practice Annunciation” a diptych that shows the Angel Gabriel having to practice his Annunciation Techniques on a couple of local teenage girls, and getting a typical teenage girl reaction. So he has to practice some more. I like to explore the themes that you will see in the Religious Gallery, and ask you if you are really sure you know what happened. I have painted portraits in Religious settings. I have painted a whole commissioning family at the Wedding At Cana which is not shown here. I have painted a “Queen Of Heaven”, the Virgin Mary in her 70’s, which is a portrait of my mother.

My Ladies are a bright, large and colourful celebration of Big Women. They are a series of 11 paintings, 48” x 30”, and are a set of very simple and strong and bright images.

Jesus on the Tube has its own website, www.jesusonthetube.co.uk. This is the most well known of my paintings, and shows a teeny painting, the original is only 5”x 5”, of Jesus being ignored while sitting on the tube at Knightsbridge Station. It is painted in a semi Icon style and is used extensively in educational publications, in religious publications and I have ended up – with enormous delight – painting portraits of families next to a Jesus on their choice on a tube train at a station of their choice. Wonderful. Have a look.

A Graceful Death is an exhibition I have put together of paintings from the end of a life. The paintings began with the death of my beloved partner, whom I painted as he died of cancer in 2007. From this, a deeply moving and profoundly loving selection of paintings have come together as A Graceful Death. The paintings are raw, realistic and full of compassion and love. They show the body as it folds up and dies, while the power in the spirit of life keeps the breath going even as the body is fading. I have painted the same man in the weeks and days before he died, and on the day of his death. I now include contributions from those who have been to the exhibition and want someone remembered, whether in poetry, prose which they have written, or an image which I will paint and include. Each time the exhibition is shown, it is bigger by at least one contribution. Until the website is up and running, please go to www.agracefuldeath.blogpsot.com for the latest information, images, poetry and news.

Follow my blog at www.antoniarolls.blogspot.com