Delphine de Castellane

Delphine is French, a descendant of the Toulouse-Lautrec family. She was born in Uccle, in 1962, and grew up in Brussels and Provence. Her father, Comte Albert de Castellane, painted, and Delphine often drew as a child, later going to art school in Brussels from 1989 to 1992.

But it was not until she married and moved to Scotland in 1995 that painting really “grabbed” her, and since then she has sketched and painted almost daily. Most of Delphine’s work is painted directly, out of doors, or from her car, whose dashboard now resembles a palette. She works quickly, often using pencil and watercolour, but is very strict with herself, especially where colour is concerned, and much of her work ends up on the fire.

Most paintings are untitled: although the obvious subject may be cows by a loch, likely as not it was the shape of the field or the colour of a tree which inspired the work. Delphine enjoys the work of others, but has always been more fascinated by communicating a sense of place than by any particular method or school.