FREYA Horsley is making her Kentmere House Gallery debut with Street Life, a new urban venture for an artist noted for her landscapes.

“Her work sits very well with the relaxed and imaginative style of the gallery,” says Ann Petherick, whose home in Scarcroft Hill, York, is playing host to Freya’s mixed-media show in June and July.

Freya moved north from Bath in 2002 to study for an MA in History of Art at the University of York, after graduating with a first-class degree in Fine Art in Birmingham. She settled in the city and now combines her painting with teaching part-time at an independent school.

At 31, she already has achieved wide renown, exhibiting in galleries throughout the north and Midlands, as well as in Cornwall at the Porthminster Gallery in St Ives.

Much of her work focuses on landscapes, particularly the drama of mountainous regions. Walks in the North York Moors and Lake District provide a rich and ever-changing inspiration for her drawings and paintings, although she also ventures much further afield, even trekking to the Everest Base Camp.

However, for her Kentmere House show, Freya has turned her attention to street scenes, completing a series of townscapes of York.

“I like to focus more on the experience of being in a place rather than the specifics of any one viewpoint, and my work explores the less tangible aspects of my surroundings – sounds, space, light, wind, weather and movement,” says Freya, who fills sketchbooks with notes and drawings in assorted media as her starting point for paintings.

“In the studio the paintings evolve through many layers, using fluid, translucent paint. I often begin with highly diluted acrylic paint, ‘puddled’ on to the canvas or board, followed by transparent layers of oil paint, some areas of the surface becoming textured and highly worked and others remaining more translucent and simple.”

Casting her eye over Freya’s new portfolio, Ann says: “Her atmospheric townscapes have the same mysterious and ethereal quality as her landscapes, while capturing the very essence of the place and making the location immediately recognisable. “Freya has a very distinctive style, influenced both by Turner and Ruskin, and her description of her process shows just how much can be involved in her multimedia work.”

• Freya’s Street Life exhibition will run until July 21. Gallery opening hours are every Thursday evening, 6pm to 9pm; the first weekend of each month, 11am to 5pm (July 2 and 3); and any other time by arrangement in advance on 01904 656507.