Delpha working at Porthmeor Studios. Photo by Pete knight
Delpha Hudson (b. surrey 1963) lives and works in West Cornwall. Informed by her experiences of motherhood she has developed a painting and performative practice that layers mythology, literature, historical research and invites us to consider our deeper connections to ecology and care.
Delpha uses a colourful visual language with a lyrical medievalesque vernacular that has a vivid narrative function. Idealised archetypes move, gesture and tell stories in surreal landscapes and historical patterns that are filled with multitudes of figures and hybrid creatures. They tell stories about empathy and value, recognising the significant role that women play and have played in caring for humanity and the natural world around them.
Painting can create extraordinary spaces that register presence. Strange fictions act as a strong identification with the human condition. Exploring female experience through carnivalesque juxtapositions, Delpha satirizes hierarchies that have confined and contained women and aims to create new conversations about our collective responsibility to each other, the natural world around us, and our potential for transformation.
Frozen in Time – painting in progress in Delpha’s Studio, April 2026Our human moment, mixed media on canvas, 200x180cm, 2026Not every story has to be battle, mixed media on canvas, 200x180cm shown at Tremenheere Gallery, Oct 2025Our secret grace unnamed, invisible, surviving, oil and acrylic on canvas, 200x180cm 2025 Selected by curator Dr Matt Retallick for Longya at Tremenheere Gallery & shown at Falmouth Painting Platform 2025The lie of the land, acrylic on canvas, 170x160cm, 2025 Telling Tales exhibition with ceramicist Debbie Prosser at Penwith Gallery, St Ives, January 2025 A common treasury for all, acrylic on canvas, 200x180cm, 2023 Shown at Right to Roam, Fish Factory 2024The monsters that make us, mixed media on canvas, 200x160cm, 2022 When you’ve been around so long you are goddess of many things, Tremenheere Gallery, April 2023
Another glad day, acrylic on canvas, 200x180cm, 2024 Infinitely boundless as the human heart, acrylic on canvas, 210x160cm, 2023
Shown at Between Earth and Sky, Stroud, 2023
Creatures that tip the scales in our favour, acrylic on canvas, 210x170cm, 2023The sixth sense of understanding, acrylic on canvas, 200x180cm, 2021, STUDIO KIND, 2024In the soup, acrylic on canvas, 190x165cm, 2022 Standard bearer, mixed media on canvas, 195x160cm, 2022
Work on paper
I make no apology, watercolour and ink, 60x42cm, 2025Gleaning a fruitful incoherence, watercolour and ink, 42x30cm, 2024 The mire of ambivalence, watercolour & ink, 42x30cm, 2024The price of truth (whose truth?) 42x30cm, watercolour and ink, 2023 Family on a tight rope, watercolour & ink, 42x30cm, 2022
There is new work on paper every week and they are for sale. Do get in touch
Older paintings that use bitumen as a conceptual medium
She wanted to swim through the broadest of lives, oil & bitumen on canvas, 50x50x4cm, 2020
Feral Mothers performance collaboration with Helen Sargeant.
Performance collaborations with Helen Sargeant at the Men-an-tol, June 2023Gathering Gilet, performance with painted coat and recycled plastic pockets, 2025
Grandma’s Story, found object with acrylic on linen, interactive painting installation, 2024-5 at Falmouth Art Gallery & Studio Kind, DevonThe Wolperdinger’s Wife, sculpture installation, 140x190x55cmM’aidez, m’aidez May Day sculpture version, found objects, canvas, paint, hag stones, stoneware figure and wool, 39x39x110cm A comical attack on impermanence, stoneware figure, Portuguese soap and painted driftwood, 18x13x11cm, 2026
