About
Why do I make art?
I have to. It is a spiritual practice for me, an essential meditation process and expression of who I am in the world.
My paintings are inspired by many places and it is where the spirit of that place meets my imagination that a painting is born. I refer to my work as having a ‘Conversation with Landscape’.
I work almost entirely from imagination, where feeling, images and inspiration is stored. I wonder and wander through the landscapes I love – North Yorkshire Moorland and Coast, Wiltshire, absorbing the spirit of the place. Then when I sit before a blank canvas the impressions I’ve absorbed meet with my imagination and the conversation begins.
Most of my work is mixed-media on either canvas or wooden board. Collage, acrylic, pen, pastel, markers, print – I enjoy using a variety of materials in my mark-making -and I love vibrant and strong colours.
The layers in my work reflects my fascination with what is hidden in a landscape. I am exploring and discovering and the result is abstract because it is my unique conversation with time, wild and ancient places, the marks left upon the land. I don’t paint what the eye sees, but what the heart feels.
I know when a painting is finished because two things happen- I fall in love with it and it is no longer something I have done – it belongs to itself.
HH 14th Dalai Lama.
