I began painting several years ago as a way to express my emotions on the canvas. What started as part of my healing grew into a personal style I call Emotionism — expressive artwork shaped by colour, feeling, and the inner landscape rather than literal scenes.
As a mature-age artist and Visual Arts student at university, I explore many approaches: textured pieces, layered colour work, abstract emotional paintings, and quieter narrative moments. Each piece holds a story, a mood, or a memory.

Here you’ll find a small selection of my original paintings — pieces that reflect different chapters of my life and the feelings and emotions behind them.

Abstract emotional painting in the Emotionism style. Bold reds, blacks, and yellows express the intensity of grief and healing. Original expressive artwork by a mature-age Visual Arts student Marina Lonsdale.

  • This painting was created at a time when I couldn’t explain what I felt in words. “The Shape of Grief” is the moment my emotions turned into colour — fire, darkness, fragments, and the first traces of strength. It is not about a person. It is about what my heart lived through.

Abstract emotional painting in the Emotionism style. Purples, blues, and flowing movement express deep emotion and inner reflection. Original artwork by a mature-age Visual Arts student Marina Lonsdale.

  • This painting grew from a time when emotions felt deep and shifting. The Depths holds the movement of that inner world — the swirl of purple, blue, and shadow, and the feeling of being carried by something larger than words.

Abstract textured painting with cracked black and gold surface. Expressive mixed-media artwork exploring emotion, depth, and the feeling of fracture. Contemporary abstract art by Marina Lonsdale.

  • I painted this at a time when something inside me felt as if it had cracked. It holds the moment when hidden emotions rose up and colour became the only way to let them out, and everything I felt beneath what the world could see.

Emotional portrait painting in acrylic. A mature-age Visual Arts student Marina Lonsdale captures grief, memory, and resilience through expressive light, texture, and realism. Finalist in the Live Well Die Well Art Prize.

  • “Grief” was painted during a time when loss shaped my inner world in ways I couldn’t easily express. The acrylic painting portrays a man in a moment of stillness. The man’s face holds the weight of memory. His expression reflects the pain of absence, but also the strength it takes to carry that love forward. This piece is part of my journey of healing and finding meaning through art and reflects on what it means to love, to lose, and to live on. “Grief “ was later chosen as a finalist in the Live Well Die Well Art Prize, which meant a great deal to me because this painting holds so much of what I felt then.

Acrylic painting combining a symbolic self-portrait, musical notes from Tchaikovsky’s Sweet Dreams, and abstract clocks. Expressive artwork exploring memory, time, loss, childhood, and the journey of life. Contemporary abstract art by Marina Lonsdale

  • My Life is a self-portrait of the soul — a quiet gaze looking toward the story I have lived. The musical notes come from Tchaikovsky’s Sweet Dreams, a piece I loved from childhood, tender and peaceful, and a reminder that I have always been a dreamer.
    The broken clock represents the people who are no longer here, the ones whose presence now lives in memory. The working clock above shows the time of my own life, though its face is hidden, because none of us know when our time will end.
    The colours that move across the painting are my days — some bright, some difficult — and the gold is for the moments of happiness that shaped me. This painting holds my history, my music, my losses, and the dreams that still guide me forward.

Watercolour landscape with muted tones and soft light. Expressive artwork exploring sadness, stillness, and emotional emptiness after loss. Contemporary landscape painting by Marina Lonsdale

  • This watercolour painting holds a time when everything around me felt faded and far away. The colours are soft and muted, like days that carried sadness but also a strange kind of stillness. The empty signpost, the weathered fence, the pale horizon — all of it reflects how life can feel suspended after loss, waiting for meaning to return.

Abstract acrylic painting in purples, blues, and gold. Expressive artwork symbolising emotional healing, renewal, and the return of colour after loss. Contemporary abstract art by Marina Lonsdale.

  • This painting holds the moment when healing began to take shape. The purples, blues, and soft golds move like emotion slowly returning after a long dim season. It reflects the first hint of light, the first breath of colour, and the strength of standing at the edge of healing — not fully there yet, but moving toward it.

Mixed-media abstract painting with vibrant colours, musical lines, and expressive movement. Contemporary artwork symbolising emotional renewal, identity, and the return of self after loss. Created by Marina Lonsdale

  • This mixed-media painting marks the moment I began to step back into my own life. The colours, movement, and musical rhythm reflect the return of energy, identity, and creativity after a long, dim season. It holds the feeling of becoming myself again — fully, boldly, and with colour that finally felt alive.

This section holds the paintings I created after finding my way back to myself. The colours are stronger, the movement is freer, and the emotions come from a place of renewal rather than sorrow. These works are the beginning of a new chapter — lighter, braver, and more alive.

Abstract cosmic painting with planets, galaxy colours, and textured space. Acrylic art by Marina Lonsdale exploring renewal, imagination, and life beyond grief.

  • This acrylic painting marks the moment when my world began to open again.
    After years shaped by loss, I found myself drawn to something vast and new — colours, stars, and space unbound by the past. Beyond the Old World is the feeling of stepping into a wider sky, breathing differently, and realising that there is more ahead of me than behind me. It holds the sense of freedom that arrived when I returned to myself.

Acrylic ocean painting with sunrise and soft waves. Under the Rising Sun by Marina Lonsdale features warm morning light, calm water, and a sense of renewal.

  • This acrylic painting captures the moment when morning light meets the sea and everything feels possible again. The soft glow across the wave, the gentleness of the horizon, and the warmth of the rising sun create a sense of calm and new beginnings. Under the Rising Sun reflects the beauty of early light and the peaceful rhythm of the water.

Watercolour portrait in blue and gold tones by Marina Lonsdale. Shades of Self blends soft washes and layered colour to create an expressive, translucent face.

  • This watercolour portrait explores identity through colour and light.
    The face forms through layered washes of blue and gold, emerging with clarity and calm strength. Shades of Self reflects a moment of presence, where identity takes shape through colour, movement, and the openness of the medium.

Abstract acrylic painting with soft blues, purples, and gold highlights. Light Through the Heart by Marina Lonsdale explores healing, renewal, and emotional warmth through colour and texture.

  • This painting holds the moment when warmth began to move through me again.
    The colours rise from cool tones into soft light, as if something inside finally opened and let love in. Light Through the Heart reflects the feeling of happiness returning — slow, real, and alive in every tone.

Impasto poppy painting with vibrant reds, yellows, and sky blue tones. Flames of the Heart by Marina Lonsdale captures renewal, colour, and emotional expression through textured acrylic.

  • This painting grew from the moment colour returned to my life.
    The poppies rise as if carried by light, full of warmth, movement, and strength. Flames of the Heart reflects the feeling of coming back to myself — brighter, more alive, and ready to bloom again.

Vivid portrait painting with pink hair and bold multicolour facial tones. The Colour of Strength by Marina Lonsdale expresses resilience and identity through colour, contrast, and expressive detail.

  • This watercolour portrait carries the feeling of finding strength in all the places life has touched. The colours flowing across the face show the layers we grow through — the light, the shadow, the softness, and the courage that rises from it all. The gaze holds honesty and determination, as if meeting the world without hiding. The Colour of Strength is about standing in your own presence, shaped by experience and brought to life through colour.

Colourful abstract music-themed acrylic painting with violin, trumpet, and saxophone forms. The Shape of Sound by Marina Lonsdale uses bold colour and geometric design to express rhythm, movement, and creative energy.

  • This acrylic painting grew from my lifelong connection to music.
    The colours, lines, and shapes move like rhythm itself, turning sound into something you can see and feel. The Shape of Sound reflects the joy, energy, and life that music has always brought into my world — a reminder that creativity has many languages

Abstract emotional portrait by Marina Lonsdale exploring unspoken feelings through layered colour.

  • This watercolour painting captures a moment when feelings sit close to the surface but remain unspoken. The colours flow into one another like shifting emotions, and the soft tears suggest a quiet honesty. It’s a face caught between hurt and strength, holding everything that hasn’t yet found words.

My work keeps changing as I do, so more paintings will appear here in time.