Trace elements Analogue

A finalist in the 2026 Hunter Emerging Arts Prize, "Trace elements (Analogue)" is now available exclusively here on Bluethumb. The painting draws on memories and sensations of growing up in northern England during the 1970s & 1980s, a period whose cultural & technological shifts greatly remain embedded in my internal landscape to date. Working with oil paint & cold wax medium on wooden cradleboard, I build & excavate layers through additive and subtractive processes - applying, scraping & dissolving pigment to create a tactile history of marks & traces. Linocut impressions & decals introduce further structures, while ghost-like circuit-board textures, raised dot-matrix forms & flashes of neon emerge from earthy browns and muted grounds. The imagery echoes the era’s transition from an analogue world to the dawn of the digital age. The painting presents residual fragments: technological motifs, colour associations & worn surfaces that persist like trace elements beneath consciousness. These visual remnants become markers of a formative era, revealing how place, time & experience continue to shape identity long after the moment itself has passed.

This painting has been framed in a slim-line black satin wooden frame, made by myself and considered as part of the overall artwork.

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Brand new to Bluethumb in November '26

Beverley (b1970, Wiltshire, England) is an emerging contemporary artist living by the sea with her husband & two adult sons. Her formative years were spent growing up in the villages of Yorkshire before moving to Australia with her parents and then boyfriend (now husband) in 1988. From her home studio in Merewether Heights, Newcastle, she produces bold & joyful works of all sizes using the medium of oil & cold wax. A lesser known medium, it’s a decadent & luxuriously patience-inducing way of painting. It allows Beverley to thoughtfully build layer (thick or thin) upon layer of oil paint & wax, imprinting, excavating & mark-making with each new pass of the “active” piece. This results in a painting with visible history, built with those many veils of colours, textures, marks & memories. Responses to Beverley’s work are often tactile in nature, the feeling of not only wanting to look closer at the history but the urge to touch that history.

Beverley paints because she must

Beverley paints because she must. It is her coping mechanism for her life. Initially training in & ultimately attaining a 15 year career as a successful Make-up artist (tv, music and film etc), she now finds herself predominantly bed & house bound. A complex mix of neurological & autonomics disease and chronic pain ensure she is rarely able to leave her home, therefore her art practice has necessarily become her raison d’etre. Each painting an expression of the joy she finds in her memories & in the smaller things in life.

Why Bluethumb?

Why Bluethumb? Whilst Beverley has been part of the broader arts community in Newcastle for almost 20 years, she’s no longer able to physically show up and participate in the traditional way she once did. She has therefore found it difficult to grow her business meaningfully within that organic artistic environment. From her old life of traveling nationally and internationally with actors and musicians, attending openings and premiers, she is ultimately left to navigate this newly undertaken career online. Therefore, two years after deciding to create a cohesive body of work for sale, to then be able to place her art in a busy online platform that offers thousands of collector’s eyes on a daily basis, Bluethumb as a leader in the marketplace became her knight in shining armor, so-to-speak. Also, with the caliber of artists under it’s banner, Bluethumb gives Beverley the environment in which she feels she can uphold, thrive and ultimately grow as an artist. Ultimately, Bluethumb gives Beverley an alternative way to organically "show up" within the arts community.