Summer News 2026

Dear Friends!

I hope you have been enjoying the summer weather and have some exciting summer activities planned. It has been a while since my last newsletter - I have been quite busy attending courses in the last few months, exploring some new media for me, i.e. watercolour and printmaking techniques.

It is a very different way of working from oil painting but has been an enjoyable challenge, which I hope will enrich my practice. So far I have particularly liked dry point and monotype printing and have been very grateful to have sold some of the prints at my local Milldon Art Society Annual exhibition earlier in May. You can see one of the prints I produced here. I will have a few of them for sale at the local event - Lawrence Street Allotments Open Day on Sunday 2nd of August.

On the oil painting front I have started working on a series of paintings of nocturnal gardens but this time in Provence, in France.

I also had one of my sunset paintings selected for the Women in Art Fair and exhibited at Oxo Gallery in Central London in May - it was a was a wonderful exhibition of works by female artists.

Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2026

Here is the most exciting bit of the news - my work has been selected again for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition that opened earlier this week. This time I have two of my nocturnal paintings (see the photos below) on show. The 258th exhibition is coordinated by the multidisciplinary conceptual artist Ryan Gander OBE RA. The theme is “Interconnectedness” - it explores entanglement, associations, and the unexpected connections between disparate or illogical things.

Both of my paintings are in Room IV that has been curated by the painter Humphrey Ocean. I feel honoured to share the room with works by Sir Grason Perry RA, Dame Tracie Emin RA, Humphrey Ocean RA, Rebecca Salter CBE PRA, Gavin Turk and many other fantastic artists. I hope you will have a chance to go and see the exhibition - it is a delightful celebration of art as usual and will be open until the 23 of August.

Enchanted House (I), cat. number 690 and Enchanted House (II), cat. number 706.

Hampstead Summer Festival - Art Fair

If you are looking for something nice to do outdoors this weekend, Hampstead Summer Festival Art Fair is taking place in the beautiful garden of Keats House (10 Keats Grove, Hampstead, London NW3 2RR) from 12 pm to 5 pm on Sunday 21/6 (free entry). I will have several of my sunset paintings there. Sir Michael Palin will be opening the art fair at 1 pm and apart from the art sale, there will be a range of activities for adults and children, including food and craft stalls. You can see the full programme of the day here.

Charity Art Exhibition and Sale for North London Hospice

In July I will be taking part in a small local charity event in support of North London Hospice. They will hold an exhibition A Healing Power of Nature in Arts Depot from 15 to 20 of July (9 am - 5 pm, free entry). The exhibition will include the works of Yvonne Saville - a local artist living with motor neurone decease and also the works donated by several local artists, mostly members of the Milldon and Finchley Art Societies, myself included. All the works will be for sale. The money raised will help North London Hospice to continue to provide free, compassionate care to the community. You can find more information about the event here.

I hope you find this information of interest and that you might be able to visit some of the exhibitions. Have a wonderful summer!

Please feel free to share this email with friends and family, if you like, or anyone else who might be interested in the information above. And of course, contact me if you have any questions!

Best wishes

Diana Sandetskaya