Local artist Hannah Luxton displays her latest work, Stains on the Scenery, at Chorak Cafe in East Finchley

On display at Chorak Cafe in East Finchley throughout February, the exhibition is a selection of the 25-year-old’s latest work from her MA in Fine Art, which she is studying for at the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London.

“This show also has some of my older work that I did as an undergraduate at Kingston University,” Hannah says. “That was ‘romantic notions of the sublime in the landscape’. It focused on the idea of the horizon - that line where the land ends and the sky begins and that unknown space in between.

“Now, to get that idea of infinity, I’m using diagonal lines to bring in a perspective, to get a distance in the painting.”

A study of her work will also reveal the use of orbs, used by the Romantic and expressionist painters to represent an omnipotent presence - ‘the divine’. “I’m tying that symbol to the sun or the moon or the stars,” Hannah explains. “It’s all a bit surreal but grounded in the real world that we live in.”

Hannah takes a lot of her inspiration from the symmetry and nature themes of the northern Romantic painters, but she also sees her style as expressionist. “I take more of the essence or the shape or the location of, say, a tree, I don’t necessarily portray its exact likeness. It’s more about the way it’s painted, and the colours and textures used.”

After the exhibition’s run, Hannah will be working towards the Slade’s end-of-year show in June, then working on her dissertation until September.

Combined with a part-time job, it’s a lot of hard work - but it’s a labour of love. “I’ve been doing it since I was little. Art was always my favourite lesson at school. It’s the only thing I’m really good at!”

Stains on the Scenery is on display at Chorak Cafe, High Road, East Finchley February 1-29. Details: 020 8365 3330, www.hannahluxton.com