Ruth Holt

Born in 1979, Ruth grew up in Cornwall. As the daughter of acclaimed Cornish artist Robert Jones was surrounded by paintings as a child, this led her to learn to paint and draw at home discovering her artistic values of observation, space and truth.

From an early age she was particularly fascinated by portraiture and at eleven, her ability was recognised and developed in an art scholarship to attend Truro school.

A multitalented artist, in 1995, Ruth was accepted at the prestigious Chetham’s School of Music where she studied the oboe. This was the beginning of a musical journey leading to further studies at other world leading Conservatoires; the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and the Royal Northern College of Music and culminating in playing with among others the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Halle Wind Ensemble and the Manchester Camerata. She views her rich musical career as a huge privilege and experience which taught her which took her all over the world and taught her about subtle shifts in colour and tone which informs and influences her paintings today. Throughout this period she remained true to her first passion, showing at galleries and painting to commission.

After the gift of bringing up her two boys, Ruth now focuses exclusively on her art and has exhibited at the Mall Galleries, with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Lynne Painter Stainer’s Prize, the New English Art Club and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

Speaking about her portraits from her Dorset studio:  ‘It’s a great privilege to be asked to paint loved ones and I approach each piece as honestly as possible. My hope is that through the simple and sensitive act of observation, I can reveal a beautiful truth, might it be a moment in time, a glint in an eye, the essence of a soul.”

Ruth Holt, 2024