My work to date has focussed on portraiture and the use of abstraction in landscape painting. Currently, I am concentrating on my landscape work, but I plan to develop and apply abstraction techniques in portraits as well.
I am interested in abstraction because I want to use it to build connections with my viewers. As in painting figurative representations, abstraction also requires skill and hard work. However, with abstraction some or all elements of the image are only suggested, leaving creative room for each viewer to complete the picture. It fascinates me that no two viewers of an abstract image have exactly the same experience.
As for me, I have always been an artist at heart and believed that I would become a painter one day. Eventually I realised that this hadn’t and would not happen if I didn’t make some radical changes. I gave up work, joined painting and drawing groups and got busy. It has taken a bit of perseverance and engagement with painting schools in Cheltenham, Norfolk and St Ives over the last few years to start producing work I was pleased with.
But now here I am! Taking part in exhibitions and sharing my work and process. Exhibiting has caused me to think differently about painting and has increased my confidence as an artist. Most of all though it has been fascinating to talk to visitors and hear how they respond to my paintings and often, for those that are creators too, to hear about their own work.