A RETROSPECTIVE exhibition will help keep alive the legacy of one of the town’s most popular artists – Carolyn White.

This Retrospective exhibition, which takes place at the George Room in Stroud’s Subscription Rooms June 2-11, is the final opportunity to view the breadth of Carolyn’s painting career, and income from the sale of her paintings will be given, as Carolyn desired, to the Sue Ryder Hospice at Leckhampton Court, Cheltenham where she was treated with such compassion in the last few months of her illness.

The good news for friends and collectors of her work is that many previously unseen pastels, watercolours and oils have been discovered – now framed or mounted to join her more familiar pictures on the walls of the gallery, all of which are for sale in support of Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice.

Subjects cover the full range of Carolyn’s interests and date from the 1980s to 2012. Many are devoted to her love of the Stroud valleys and the Slad Valley in particular, which she painted in all seasons, working outdoors at dawn, dusk and in the heat of the day.

Absorbing the ‘differentness’ of foreign countries and cultures was another abiding passion that resulted in rich interpretations of areas of the Caribbean, Cyprus, Turkey, the Greek island of Andros as well as France, Italy and Spain.

Carolyn’s spirit was also moved and excited by the sea, and this is where Cornwall became her focus over a period of 18 years. Long days were spent painting on cliff-tops and rocks in the Penwith peninsula where she ’caught the moment’ in pastel or watercolour. Seeking always to distil the descriptive into abstraction, she captured the mood and atmosphere of place by “entering into a dialogue with nature, feeling at liberty to heighten the colour and transpose it into a rhythm of forms”.

The popular Stroud artist’s zest for life and love of painting kept her positive through 18 years of recurring cancer and her final solo exhibition ‘Light Years’ in Stroud, which opened just before she died in September 2013, was received with great acclaim.

Carolyn’s exhibition, curated by Gilly Wyatt Smith of Yew Tree Gallery, Cornwall, herself a previous Slad resident, will be open daily except Sunday from 10am until 5pm. A selection of the paintings can be seen on www.carolynwhiteartist.co.uk