After showing work in group exhibitions at Petworth House Gallery, The Start Gallery in Brighton, The Capitol in Horsham and at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, abstract painter Belinda Stephenson is staging a solo exhibition in Worthing.

The show, which runs until March 09, is a retrospective of her work from the last five years. Her moody abstracts play with subtle overlapping colours, textures and carefully balanced composition.

Bold paintings in a pallette of greys and whites feature scratchy symbols and markings. Other paintings include more complete shapes, like bottles and crockery, suggesting still life paintings. Further compositions are reminiscent of aerial views of landscapes.

Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Belinda completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, majoring in Painting and History of Art at the University of Cape Town.

Since 2002, she has taught at Northbrook College, Chichester High School for Boys and at Bognor Community College. In 2005 Belinda won the prestigious Julia Pannet Cup for Best Artist in the annual West Sussex Art Society exhibition.

Her new exhibition is at Strand Dental, Ingram House, Liverpool Road, Worthing. The dental practice have dedicated space to exhibiting professional contemporary artists since opening their modernist town centre premises. Visitors can drop in to view Belinda's paintings around the building.

"Belinda's paintings are full of mysterious marks, signs and symbols and seem to speak some secret language," says the Revolutionary Arts Group's Dan Thompson, "so this exhibition at Strand Dental gives art lovers something to really get their teeth into"

Belinda is a member of the Revolutionary Arts Group, and has exhibited with them across Sussex.