Artist Statement

The focus of my painting is landscape- it is my history, identity, and culture. A natural landscape is where I want to be. The landscape I inhabit is constantly changing, since the beginning of time. It is imbued with the history of geological shifts and weathering but also the activities of humans through farming and industry. When I walk a path or begin to paint, I change the ground with my impression and as my brush presses into the colour, so the leaves are bruised and crushed underfoot. Chance encounters with butterflies and beetles, activate visual and emotional delight, as does the sunlight on transparent leaves and the shadows below. Freshly mown grass and manure, spread to enrich the soil, assault my nose. The raucous chatter of magpies, contrasts with the gentle hum of bees, those stinging nettles and thorny roses require a gloved hand. Like the horizon, the painting in my mind’s eye is unreachable, but I am compelled towards it.

Paint is my choice, paint is challenging, exciting and pleasurable. Painting has an affinity with landscape by nature of the materiality of both, the metamorphosis that both undertake, together with that of the artist in a trajectory of becoming. The colours, textures, and behaviour of paint mixed with water or other mediums can be controlled to a certain extent with practice but can also be unpredictable bringing new and exciting one- off opportunities. Paint has the language to bear witness to physical objects or occurrences in nature. It can be made to look hard, soft, still or moving, solid or transparent. Furthermore, the interactive processes of making a painting are an extension of life and the outcomes are always unique and surprising. I want to share them with other people.