artist | Samantha Humphreys

February 15, 2026

Art and Self-Care: February’s Journey of Renewal

Look at the gorgeousness of the snowdrop that was tucked away from the path; very few will have set their eyes on it. I have loved seeing them for as long as I can remember. These are just so delicate and pure-looking, yet they possess a strength that allows them to stand tall, even under the weight of the heavy rain from the night before.

It’s hardly surprising that February is my favorite month. It marks the arrival of the first signs of spring, as the snowdrops and cheerful daffodils begin to bloom, lifting our spirits after the winter and the dreary January days following the chaos of Christmas. Today, is my birthday which I always seem to treat as a fantastic opportunity to reflect, reset, and re-energize.

I have spent the day indulging in some mooching about, despite the persistent rain that has tried, but failed to darken the day. I am currently eating cake, drinking tea and watching Death in Paradise, which can’t help but make me feel warmer.

It’s funny how as I get older, I have never been one of those people who view a birthday with a sense of impending doom, dreading the extra year older as though this isn’t something to celebrate. I see each year as an achievement and a chance to question what have I done better in this past year? Well, I am healthier and taking practical steps to make sure I stay as healthy as I can be. I am more knowledgeable, I have learned so much about life both through experiences and research and I am excited for more therapeutic art exercises that I can now develop through what I have learned. I am grateful for everything and everyone I have in my life and I am eternally grateful to have Take That tickets for June!!!

Tomorrow I will be taking myself out on an artist date, one of the invaluable lessons that stuck with me when I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron a few years ago. This practice of nurturing my creativity is crucial; I am off to The National Portrait Gallery, The National Gallery, and Tate Modern, where I plan to totally indulge myself in the art of Picasso, Freud, Warhol and the many other artists I am familiar with as well as some I am not. I will walk everywhere as I usually do as I prefer not to have to navigate my way around the underground. The underground feels rushed and confining; it interrupts the purpose of the day too much. By walking, I get to see more than I would if I were crammed into a crowded, sweaty tube. I can take spontaneous detours, pause to appreciate unplanned street art, and simply enjoy the outside air, all of which feeds my need for constant inspiration.

Happy birthday me!

February 11, 2025

Mastering the Art of ‘Being’

I stopped to look at the tree I pass each day, the reason I stopped was that the skies behind it were divided into a a summer blue and a thundery grey. The sun was bright on and off so there was a moment when the complex system of nerve like branches were very defined. There was a yellow glow through the moss green that highlighted the creases in the bark, reminding me of wrinkles that have been caked in make up.

It is important to take care of yourself mentally as well as keeping physically fit. If you are anything like me, your mind is constantly in overdrive with worries, lists, texts messages and endless pulls on your time and attention. Sometimes, switching to aeroplane mode just for a short while will see you (or feel) reaping the benefits later on. This gives you the chance pay attention to what is around you whether that be an urban concrete landscape or land wrapped in fields, forests and streams. Either way, there will be air, sounds and sights of all sorts.

It is quite tricky to get into the habit of noticing what you see throughout your day. A way of training yourself to do this is the simple exercise of asking yourself: What three colours can I see? then, Choose one of those colours and find three shades of it; so using my photograph above a reference:

‘green/brown/blue!’

Then, as i’m unlikely to find three shades of blue and there are plenty of neutral hues around the centre of the image, I will look for three shades of ‘brown’ …if you are familiar with colours of a artist palette you might say:

Burnt umber/Raw Umber and Ochre or if not then simply Dark Brown/Light Brown/Beige

While you are doing this exercise, you will be unaware of anything that isn’t about those colours, even if it takes you less than a few minutes.

Life is too short for just coasting, doing what we think we should do and not saying things we want to say. Let loved ones know they are loved and also, just as importantly, celebrate that you are alive and take care of you!

January 27, 2025

That London

*Private View* (2025) Samantha Humphreys

Last week I attended the opening evening of London Art Fair, an event which I have only missed once in the last twelve years. As always, the Encounters section curated by Pryle Behrman was the highlight for me. This year, the work that caught my attention surprisingly for me were a series of paintings by Zbyněk Sedlecký from the Czech Republic who was represented by The Chemistry Gallery.

*Torso I* Oil on canvas (2024) 100 x 70cm

As my own creative practices embrace real life, I was drawn to the beautiful way this artist captures genuine moments that are not in any sense beautiful. Instead, he focuses on the less attractive ‘in between’ times of life. The paintings were mesmerising because they were interchangeable between being photorealistic and richly painterly and my mind seemed to switch between the detailed positioning of the body parts, the exactness of the light bouncing off the cutlery and the blurry fuzziness of the edges of the paintings. I just love them, they are wonderfully dramatic, theatrical and unexciting all at once. The collection is reminiscent structurally of the renaissance period with its grand still life compositions that celebrated wealth and status: though in contrast the artist is honouring the mundane, yet with the same traditional medium that you can almost still smell.