Ann McCay

Ann McCay’s paintings draw from a combination of memory, observation and imagination. She’s interested in the importance and power of the natural world in our childhood fantasies and how they resonate through life.

Her paintings imply a story to be told, a dream to be understood. The settings are based on places that she knows very well and has spent time in and walked through for years. There is a troupe of characters who inhabit these places, by trees, along the riverbank, in sheds, in a magical shop, in the company of animals, quietly occupying themselves, maybe reading or rowing or in a reverie.

She works on groups of paintings simultaneously, feeling that they speak to each other and that one idea informs another. Other elements from magazine cuttings, literature, old photographs and art history combine with her personal stories. She paints illustratively, evoking memories of childhood perceptions of the world and everything beyond it. She is attracted to the Romantics and their emotional response to their surroundings, finding metaphors and symbols in them which connect to the viewer.

Ann graduated with a degree in Fine Art from The University of the West of England in 1983. She then worked as a professional artist in southern Spain and London before moving back to Shropshire where she grew up. Since then she has continued to paint and exhibit regularly. She is married with two adult children.

Ann is also an established portrait painter. She has exhibited in the B.P Portrait Competition and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

Solo Exhibitions
Preparations, Expeditions and Imaginings, Solo Exhibition Fosse Gallery 2025
The Willow House, Solo Exhibition, Twenty Twenty Gallery 2022
Remembered Places, Solo Exhibition, Twenty Twenty Gallery 2020

Recent Exhibitions
Christmas Exhibition of Gallery Artists Fosse Gallery 2025
“Burning Bright” Winter Exhibition Old Chapel Gallery 2025
Beaujolais Nouveau Day Winter Exhibition Soden Collection 2025
British Art Fair Soden Collection Saatchi Gallery 2025
“Quiet Birds Circled in Flight” Autumn Exhibition Old Chapel Gallery 2025
Winter Exhibition, Soden Collection 2024
Christmas Exhibition Fosse Gallery 2024
ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, Mall Galleries 2024
Summer Exhibition Fosse Gallery 2024
Spring Exhibition, Old Chapel Gallery 2024
Featured Artist, Spring Exhibition, Twenty Twenty Gallery 2023
Summer Bonanza, Fosse Gallery 2023
Horizon Garden, Group Show Ty Pawb, Wrexham 2023
Winter Exhibition,Twenty Twenty Gallery 2023
Christmas Exhibition, Fosse Gallery 2023
A Fairer Sextet, Fosse Gallery 2022
Memories Exhibition Cow Palace Willey Estate Shropshire 2022
Source to Sea,Twenty Twenty Gallery 2021
A Fairer Sextet Group Exhibition Fosse Gallery 2021
Art in the Orangery, Twenty Twenty Gallery – Pitchford Hall 2021
Christmas at Twenty Twenty, Twenty Twenty Gallery 2020
Easter Exhibition of Gallery Artists, Fosse Gallery 2020