Noela James Bewry was born in Vienna in 1951, her mother was Austrian and her father Jamaican. She was brought up in London and studied Fine Art at Kingston Upon Thames Art College.
She spent several years teaching art at Stroud College whilst continuing her painting practice and exhibiting widely.
Bewry has also worked with print, a discipline where colour, rhythm and layering closely resonated with her painting process as it made a gradual progression from her distinctive landscapes and figurative work towards abstraction.
Over the past decade she has developed an abstract, painterly language to express her rich and dynamic relationship with colour and rhythmic form, a kind of calligraphic layering with strong links to musical compositions. Bewry’s figurative painting has given way to an abstract vision and like music is an expression in and of itself.
Exhibitions
2025 Adderbank Gallery ‘The Shape of Sound’
2023 St. Mary’s of the Angels ‘Krazy Kat in the Cotswolds’
2023 Cococaravan ‘Three Works’ (solo show)
2023 Prema Arts Centre (solo show)
2022 Museum in the Park Stroud ‘Brancaster Chronicles in Stroud’
2021 John Street Gallery (solo show)
2021 Abcrit Gallery Bermondsey
2020 Linden Hall Studio Gallery
2019 Stroud Museum in the Park
2017 Westminster Reference Library (solo show)
2017 Tetbury Goods Shed (solo show)
2015 John Street Gallery Stroud
2010 Stroud International Textiles at Museum in the Park
2009 Brewery Arts Cirencester (solo show)
2009 Wonderwall Gallery Cirencester
2008 Hadfield Fine Art
2006 Ruskin Mill Gallery Nailsworth (solo show)
2003 Cirencester Workshops Gallery
1997 Fiery Beacon Gallery Painswick
Several Open Studio Exhibitions
Collections
Stroud District Council Collection
Numerous Private collections
Professional
1980-2000 Teaching part-time at Stroud College in Gloucestershire
Curator of Drawing Show at Ruskin Mill and some Taster Exhibitions as part of the SVA Site Festival Stroud.
Founder of Adderbank Gallery Stroud in 2025
Publications
‘The Shape of Sound’ by Matt Denis on ‘Instantloveland’ 2025
Brancaster Chronicles and Abcrit online.
Stroud International Textiles Festival 2010
