Exhibitions / News

A solo exhibition of my paintings will be at the Benham Gallery, Cuckoo Farm Studios on 27 June to 5 July 2009 - gallery is only open weekends from 11am until 4pm. I will be invigilating. The show is called 'Sleeping Heads'.

Linda (Mum) was selected for Eastern Open 2009. The painting won a prize from the Wyss Foundation - £100.

Phoebe looking down - Oil on canvas
25cm X 36cm

Painting below - Linda (Mum) - March 2009 - oil on canvas - 90cm x 60cm

This painting was Selected for the Eastern Open 09.
It won a prize - from the Wyss foundation

About me

The painting process is like a ritual that is very gradually transformed over time. Lately my work has taken a turn towards realism and superrealism - I am currently looking at the work of the photorealists, such as Malcolm Morley, and examining their techniques such as grids and building up the pictures a square at a time - one of my latest 'Mum' uses this process. I am attempting to analyse the photograph in an abstract and objective manner whilst staying true to more painterly qualities such as colour mixing, mark making and layering paint. Working into the hair I have discovered many links to my abstract painting. Working like this is a transformative process. It is almost the opposite to my earlier abstract direction - I am working whilst sitting as opposed to standing - it is a different, contained energy - a process that is constructive, building complex colour patches with layers.

The process of my abstract paintings is akin to forms emerging from a blank slate or 'tabula rasa'. Natural forms such as shells inspire the forms and shapes and dried husks that twist and undulate and these shapes form a vocabulary that has been built up over time. The work engages with the unconscious and I find ways of letting the forms flow from a constant engagement with the surface of the canvas. Working in a way that tries to conjure up ideas I usually start with no clear idea for a painting but rather look to my last work or works in a series for a direction. The latest abstract works are formed by taking away paint from a ground colour with a brush thus creating lines which intertwine into shapes and flowing forms. Painting around them with white primer then isolates the shapes - so there is a figure/ ground relationship. This process has come about through doing a series of woodcuts where I am cutting away the surface and revealing lines on the wood, which will be printed.

Previous work has involved using chicken wire as a mask to paint through with gloss rollers or working intensely with an dip ink pen on paper, conjuring up nests and swirling forms that eat back into themselves. Working close up to the surface not totally aware of how the work is progressing as a whole and then stepping back to see what has materialised and then reworking and teasing out structures.