Cynthia Barlow Marrs SGFA

Cynthia is a British-American artist in Windsor with an international background in environmental planning. Her career focus has shifted from master plans of thousands of hectares, to the intimate scale of everyday life around her. ‘Windsor on My Wall’ is her series of watercolours and drawings inspired by people and places in her home town. 

Cynthia has a BFA degree in painting and further degrees in environmental planning and design. She is an elected member of the Society of Graphic Fine Art - The Drawing Society (SGFA) and for three years served on the SGFA council. Cynthia is blog editor for Urban Sketchers London, an official chapter of the global Urban Sketchers movement. Her art is in private collections in Britain and abroad, and can be seen in the UK in group exhibitions in London and further afield, and in solo and group exhibitions in and around the Thames Valley. 

In print and online

• Contributor in London by Urban Sketchers, a book of drawings published in 2022 by Urban Sketchers London to mark their 10 year anniversary. 
• Contributor in 'Make It an Inky October' by James Hobbs in the November 2019 issue of The Artist magazine.
• Featured artist in the Illustrated City series in the Guardian online 24 May 2019 ’Pomp, circumstance and celebrity: People watching in Windsor'.
• Author/illustrator of the pen and ink chapter in Artist's Drawing Techniques published in the USA, UK and France (DK Books first edition 2017, second edition 2023).
• Four illustrations in Pen and Ink - Contemporary Artists, Timeless Techniques (Frances Lincoln 2016) by James Hobbs, freelance editor, author and artist based in London.
• 'Drawn to the action, and drawing it' an Artists Network 'meet the artist' feature about Cynthia's location drawings by John A Parks. Originally published as 'Drawing at the Speed of Life' in Drawing magazine's special summer issue 'All about Sketchbooks' (FW New York 2016).
• Cover art for Landscape Architecture Theory - An Ecological Approach by Michael D Murphy (Island Press 2016).
• Cover art for Notes Relating to an Idea of Blue, a poetry collection by David HW Grubb (Shearsman 2011).

Awards

DRAW 13, the 92nd Annual Open Exhibition of the Society of Graphic Fine Art - The Drawing Society (SGFA).

• Highly Commended Work in Colour 
• Highly Commended Work on the Exhibition Theme

Exhibitions

Cynthia has exhibited regularly since her debut in the inaugural Windsor Fringe Festival Open Studio Art Trail in 2004.

Group exhibitions in London

2023

• 100 Bishopsgate -- The 2023 Freshfields exhibition of artworks on paper
• Mall Galleries -- The 101st annual open exhibition of the SGFA

2022 

• Mall Galleries - The 100th annual open exhibition of the SGFA

2021

• Mall Galleries - The ING Discerning Eye exhibition
• Mall Galleries - The 99th annual open exhibition of the SGFA

Earlier SGFA group exhibitions in London

• SGFA Annual Open Exhibitions at the Menier Gallery 2009 - 2014 and Bankside Gallery 2015 - 2019  
• Selected SGFA members at the Barbican Library 
• 'Hand Drawn' exhibition at Tower 42 by selected SGFA members 2017
• RK Burt Gallery 2012 - 2016 
• Southwark Cathedral Refectory

Group exhibitions outside London

• Royal Birmingham Society of Artists - SGFA Centenary Touring Exhibition 2019 
• Grierson Galleries Sevenoaks
• O3 Gallery Oxford 
• Henley Festival 2010 
• The Old Fire Station Henley-on-Thames
• Oxfordshire Artweeks 2010
• Harvey Gallery Guildford - The Final Cut 2012

Solo exhibition venues

• 'Pale Grey Castle' The Old Court Artspace Windsor 2020
• Windsor Fringe & Festival Artist's Open Studio Art Trail 2005 - 2019
• 'The Portable Forest' Ripley Arts Centre, Bromley Kent 2012
• 'Ten Views through a River of Words' River & Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames 2007
  
• 'Flight' (2005) and 'Shadow and Light' (2008) The West Wing, Slough