Portfolio of Works

At the beginning of Covid I unknowingly started work on the “Beyond the Veil” collection. I started with one woman, Madame X, and slowly and steadily woman after woman slipped through the veil to be brought to life. Each painting has a personal significance to me. Some because I am friends with and inspired by the woman, some represent an emotional time in my life and others represent my views on marriage, life and the after life. Topics that fascinate me endlessly. Read “more info” on each of the images to read more.

Technically and conceptually the paintings are complex and multi-layered. These are not paintings whipped up in a day. They were painted over two years and I revisited them many times, changing and enhancing elements, glazing and scumbling.

I am writing their stories one by one so please keep checking back for updates. 

Paintings by Lee-Ann Rodwell

A collection of evocative old world inspired landscapes. 

Paintings by Lee-Ann Rodwell

Paintings by Lee-Ann Rodwell

Paintings by Lee-Ann Rodwell

Jose Tapiro Baro, a 19th century artist, painted the most exquisite  watercolour portraits during his time in Tangier. His work has significantly inspired my portraits.

A Collection of One-of-a-Kind Portraits by Lee-Ann Rodwell

This series began with a feeling rather than a place - the pull of old fabrics, forgotten portraits, and imagined lives from another time. Though the name Tangier suggests a location, these are not literal representations of a city or its people. They are characters born from my love of storytelling, theatre, and the textures of history.

Each portrait in Tangier Imagined is a work of fiction. I think of them as timeless figures: adorned, weathered, dignified - neither real nor unreal, but dreamt into being through layers of oil, glaze, and intuition. Many of them feel familiar to me, as though I’ve met them before in some other life.

The series is also a quiet homage to craftsmanship - to the faded beauty of worn textiles, intricate jewellery, and ceremonial dress. There’s reverence in the detail, and in the silence each figure holds.

These paintings are not about identity or geography. They are about presence - about what lingers when language falls away.

Each work in Tangier Imagined is a one-of-a-kind collector’s piece. Many of the works are large at 1.5 metre square. 

Paintings by Lee-Ann Rodwell

These paintings emerged from a place somewhere between decay and bloom - a quiet reckoning with beauty, memory, and the unseen. I think of them as imagined florals, but not in the botanical sense. They feel more like emotional organisms - moments in time, personal griefs and joys that have taken root.

Some carry traces of the figure, others dissolve entirely into texture and movement. Drips, glazes, and impasto blur into each other, allowing each piece to hover between abstraction and recognition. There are echoes of the body here. There are seeds of something ancient and intimate.

I didn’t set out to paint flowers. I set out to paint what remains after something has passed through - a feeling, a dream, a transformation. The works hold light, but they also hold shadow. Together, they form a kind of soft mythology.

Paintings by Lee-Ann Rodwell

Heartbreak will do this to you. A collection of slightly surrealist paintings borne out of overwhelm and pain over loss. Fortune has it that the phoenix rose from the raging sea clutching these paintings. A challenging, cathartic and incredibly healing process. 

Paintings by Lee-Ann Rodwell

Palette Knife Florals by Lee-Ann Rodwell

This collection began quite instinctively. I wasn’t trying to paint perfect flowers - I was reaching for a feeling. Something about fading seasons, quiet rooms, and old vases left on windowsills long after the blooms had dried.

Each painting is layered with thick, textured strokes using a palette knife. The vases feel old and familiar too, as if they’ve lived a life of their own.

Vase of Forgotten Seasons is really about time. About what lingers. Fleeting beauty, yes - but also stillness, solitude, and the comfort of small things remembered.

Folk of Fabled Lands is a collection of charcoal drawings featuring imaginary people from distant, dreamlike lands. Each figure is dressed in fictional attire inspired by diverse cultures, blending real-world elements with fantasy. Through light and shadow, these pieces evoke the mystery of forgotten stories and untold myths, celebrating the imagination’s connection to heritage.

I've always been drawn to other worlds, cultures, dress and the stories I imagjne within them. These women come from somewhere between what I've seen, what I remember and what I've made up. 

There are hints of silk, tea, smoke, old lacquer and ceremony, but they don't belong to a particular time or place. I imagine who they are but don't know who they are and I like that. They have their own other worldly presence. Women who seem to have existed before the painting, carrying private histories we are left to imagine. 

These are small mostly imagined moments. Some are based on small scenes I have witnessed. People meeting, waiting, sitting together - "kuiering" in Afrikaans - sometimes accompanied by unexpected creatures. They are small glimpses into another world - stories in progress, caught for a moment before they disappear.