Creed Gallery in Ascot, Berkshire, offers original paintings by Natasha Barnes, the self-taught South African abstract artist known for vivid colour, thick, textured brushwork and a recurring waterlily motif. Our collection of seven originals, from £3,150 to £5,395, includes large-scale canvases up to 162.6 cm square. Each is a unique painting rather than a print, and our team can advise on size, framing and provenance for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey and London.
About Natasha Barnes: A Self-Taught South African Abstract Painter
Natasha Barnes (b. 1969) is a self-taught artist from South Africa. Before painting full time she had a career in food, and she has published a cookbook, Culinary Adventures of a Travelling Cook. Her work draws on her African heritage and a love of the bushveld. In her artist statement she describes murky water sheltering the resilient waterlily, a flower that thrives in adversity, and the idea that beauty can come out of dark places. The waterlily, often called the lotus in gallery biographies, appears across her paintings, sometimes as a loose, childlike drawing.
The Technique: Instinct, Water-Based Paint and Texture
Barnes paints from feeling and memory rather than from observation. "Every painting is a mood," she has said. She works in water-based paints applied in confident, committed strokes, building dense, tactile surfaces. The subject guides the flow of the paint, and forms drift toward abstraction without losing their link to the natural world that prompted them. The palette is vivid, and her recent work turns to water, from rivers and oceans to the hidden life beneath the surface.
Collecting Natasha Barnes at Creed Gallery
Barnes is widely known through print publishers, and she describes herself as one of South Africa's most published artists. Creed Gallery offers something different: her original paintings, each one unique. Prices run from £3,150 to £5,395, and scale is a strength, with Outback measuring 162.6 × 162.6 cm. Her first solo show was in South Africa in 1998, and her website lists Affordable Art Fairs in London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore, the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair, and a solo exhibition in Tokyo in 2024. She also says her painting Fuji in Bloom was acquired by a foundation that runs an art museum in the Mount Fuji region. You are welcome to visit the gallery in Ascot to see the paintings in person.
Why Collect Natasha Barnes
Her work is bold and immediately readable, with a personal symbol, the waterlily, that runs through everything. Originals at this scale and level of texture are far less common than the prints she is known for. As with any artist, individual pieces vary in demand and value, so our team is happy to talk you through the specifics of any work you're considering.
