Daisy Sims Hilditch was born to paint. From a young age Daisy looked at the natural world with the keen eye of a budding artist - perhaps borne of her great grandfather, the Royal Academician HWB Davis - be it bringing home an interesting leaf to paint or attempting to reproduce the shimmering light that struck her as it danced across a lake’s surface. She has received recognition for her skill since school: at 18, her portrait of her grandfather was selected to exhibit in the Saatchi Gallery as part of the Sunday Telegraph’s schools prize and following her tenure at the Charles H Cecil Studios in Florence, she has been exhibited in the Royal Society of British Artists and the National Portrait Gallery.
Daisy’s precocious awareness of the natural world, and all around, sowed the seeds of her development as a painter en plein air, the classical art of capturing the spirit and feel of a particular landscape, or subject, out in the open in natural light. Central to this credo is her fascination with the device of painting contre jour, a French term meaning ‘against the sun’, where shadows are thrown at different angles and an especially strong contrast is created between light and dark.
This exhibition has a focus on Swiss Alpine views; the jagged peaks, shifting snows and fleeting clouds presented her with a kaleidoscope of material. The result is a panoply of alpine beauty, boldly wrought from her mobile easel, before skiing home, canvases tucked under her arm. Daisy’s handling of paint is as crisp as the alpine air and her colours assume a striking naturalism; the snow is super soft and buildings sit square, acutely observed and rendered with a mature confidence.
If the exhibition conjures up the sonorous tinkle of cowbells and mellifluous strains of ‘Edelweiss’ then Daisy will feel she has captured, in paint, the essence of her subject, which is ultimately the true mission of the plein air artist.
