When I am starting a new piece I collect my source material. A large part of that is photographs and little thumbnail sketches that I take on my walks through my local woods. I also gather words that I feel are relevant. These can come from conversations I have or overhear. Bus travel is a good source or people watching in a cafe. Sometimes I write poems about the theme. I always do a mind map of words starting with the theme in the centre and adding boxes out from this centrepiece. I love the visual evidence of this. It is a process of very random investigation and allowing sparks to glow in my consciousness. I am never sure what I will end up with but each work is an adventure and quite often a surprise. Sometimes I produce a sketchbook but at other times I have just a collection of material.
In the past my work has focussed on the structure of the brain and neurons and also the patterns and landscapes of psychology. You can see examples of this in “Cellular 1”, “Cellular2” and “Brain Wave”. In the past I have explored themes around divorce, panic, anxiety and depression creating internal landscapes. These sit on the edge of abstraction where I combine symbols of recognisible elements such as pigeons or dragonflies with shapes, colours and patterns, as shown in “Damsel”. I often use words or phrases cut out and placed on the canvas as you can see in “Whispers and sighs” and “Jigsaw”.
I also occasionally make landscapes as with “Rock in Stream” and “Icy Path”. Water and reflections and trees appear most frequently in these paintings but also in my photographs.
I have recently expanded into paper pulp and paper making. If you visit the South Oxford Arts Exhibition in Lake Street I am intending to have some handmade paper hummingbirds as business cards which you will be welcome to take. If you would like to meet me do contact me and we can arrange to meet at the exhibition. I will also have a little bit of recent work in the Sunningwell School of Art Artweeks exhibition.
Welcome to my little corner of the Artweeks website.
I am someone who has enjoyed making things all my life. From happy hours as a child in the 60s creating constructions out of sticky tape and cardboard boxes to last term where I spent happy hours doing much the same thing. I am a maker of things. Whether that is knitting, baking, cutting little pieces of paper to make stencils or gluing bandages onto a canvas to create a collage my hands and brain are always busy making.
So I am 61 years old and the very proud grandmother to 6 grandchildren. I attend Sunningwell School of Art and study with Allyson Austin in the Images and Ideas course. I find that the discipline of attending classes and having deadlines helps me to keep the focus of my work on theme while learning new techniques to expand my skills.
My journey towards exhibiting with Artweeks has been interesting and fun. I have been lucky enough to have the company of Nic Hamilton, who is also a member of Allyson Austin’s Images and Ideas class. We have known each other for about 8 years but this is the first time we will have exhibited together outside of the class. Nic exhibited with Artweeks last year. We felt we would like to exhibit together as we have similar arts practices and our work crosses the boundary between abstract and representational often with a strong narrative. Nic introduced me to South Oxford Arts who very kindly invited us to join their exhibition. It is lovely to be part of such a well established and respected art group.