Piccadilly gardens, Manchester

Jeanette Barnes was born in Great Harwood near Blackburn in 1961, went to Accrington Foundation College and was taught by Robin Bownass. At Liverpool Polytechnic she studied in Mike Knowles’s life room, both artists strongly encouraging drawing which became the main part of her practice. At Liverpool she found inspiration in working from the energetic urban environment, the subject of all her work from then onwards. Jeanette then studied a post-graduate at the Royal Academy Schools in London and went on to the Royal College of Art to study an MA in Printmaking.

Jeanette has shown in solo and many group exhibitions including the Hunting Group, Discerning Eye, Jerwood Drawing, Lynn Painter Stainers and regularly at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, having won prizes in each of these competitions including the drawing prize at the RA Summer exhibition in 2013. She is preparing for her second London solo show this year. Her work is represented in corporate and private collections.

Mostly working on large-scale compressed charcoal drawings Jeanette captures the energy of the city, not concerned with a single moment, but of movement over time. She has recently become fascinated with the interaction of trams and people in front of Manchester’s imposing architecture.

She has taught life-drawing for the Royal Academy Outreach programme for 25 years and is a tutor at the Royal Drawing School, she lives and works in London.