For over 40 years Miranda Brookes has been exhibiting in Britain and internationally. Inspiration and subject matter in her current work reflect the British landscape tradition, especially the watercolour vistas of Constable, Cotman and Turner, and of contemporaries Jenny Grevatte, Kurt Jackson, Norman Ackroyd and David Parfitt. Her local Charnwood as well as Rutland, Norfolk and the Dorset coast have proved to be significant sources too, reflecting deeper concerns for our environment.

Viewers have commented on the ‘ethereal’ and ‘uncanny’ experience of seeing Miranda’s paintings. She applies her medium in precise and sensitive ways, employing a complex technical range long developed by British watercolourists. The quality of brush type to lay a wash or disturb a previously laid one, when either (or both) are wet or dry, illustrates the subtlety of the medium. Paint can be added by dabbing and dragging, pushing or pulling, or even scratching using the heel of the brush, with wildly different results depending for example, on the texture of the paper. As the reflective property of the paper is fundamental to our experience of watercolour, reserving areas where no paint is applied at all is also central to their effect.

Miranda was presented with the Michael Harding Award and The John Purcell Paper Prize 2024 at the Royal Institute for Painters in Water Colour exhibition 2024.