Artist Statement.
Just out of reach, in my mind’s eye, is the painting I want to paint. Every painting is an exploration of feeling and thoughts about a particular time and place, person or object.
Some of my earliest childhood memories involved mark making; scritching and scratching to embellish cracks in the walls, craftily done behind curtains to avoid immediate, unwelcome discovery and many hours spent sweeping patterns into the summer dust in the yard.
Whispers of these actions resurface in the making of my paintings.
This impulse to make marks has always been part of who I am.
I am inspired to paint the wilder spectrum of landscapes, from Pembrokeshire, Wales to Svalbard, Norway.
News, Museum and Gallery visits, Poetry, Modern dance, Life Drawing and Pre-historic Art are also some of the sources that inspire my work.
To start a landscape painting I walk, sit and look, sketch, make notes and take photos. I make the painting in my studio with additional sketches inspired by my memory of the landscape and if I’m really feeling connected a haiku poem might emerge to give clarity to my intent.
In a not entirely clear way all my paintings are influenced by prehistoric cave art. I aspire to the energy and directness of the mark making. I am also deeply affected by the potentially porous nature of paintings. Images can emerge out of the surface of a painting and they can tumble back below this surface, only fixed by the will of the artist. This manipulation of the figure/ground is an integral and thrilling part of prehistoric cave art. What I make are paintings, but in my heart I work in bas relief, always conscious of above and below the surface. Just out of reach, in my mind’s eye is the image never before seen.
