Having dabbled in art since childhood, Ros Beck has always felt especially passionate about horses. “I remember drawing a huge galloping horse on the chalk board at primary school which stayed up there for weeks!” In the late 2010s she approached galleries with puppet horse paintings, which sold very well, but it wasn’t until five years ago that she could devote herself entirely to her passion, with the support of her husband.
Ros trained with Mehrdad Tahan (featured in TNZAM in 2014) every Saturday for a year, amongst various other classes and she also belonged to a folk art group, which she found really helpful for brushwork. Other than that, she is self-taught. “When I discovered acrylic pouring (through a class at The Drawing Room) I became obsessed with it and over five years of developing my techniques and pouring medium recipes, I am feeling confident and joyous about my creative process. At the age of 60 I resent doing anything other than painting and get such a feeling of self-worth and value when I actually get paid to do something I love soo much.” Strongly supporting greyhound rescue and re-homing, Ros has donated many paintings to the ‘Save The Macau Greyhounds’ effort to re-home over 500 dogs worldwide from Macau. “I’m very proud to have been able to support this amazing team. Closer to home I support GAP (Greyhounds As Pets) and have donated from my exhibition in Riccarton and local sales.” Ros finds most of her inspiration comes from horses and dogs. “My full name is Rosamund which means ‘protector of horses or horses protect me’, so my first love is horses. I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember. The family home did not always feel the safest and I struggled in my early school years but I always had horses in my head. Of course they are beautiful, amazing animals and are just living works of art. Capturing this on canvas is a joy. Not everyone loves greyhounds and horses, so I do try to paint other things, which I enjoy, but I always come back to my passion. I have four horses and my whippet Louie so I’m never short of inspiration.
Follow Ros here.
