This exhibition, held with my husband Martin in our garden studio, shows a selection of small drawings and paintings in pastels, inks, oils and acrylics focussing on surface texture, colour, line, and pattern. The work mainly explores movement and the theme of social interaction through the motif of birds. The birds in the work, which are partly invented, are based on what I see around me at home in the garden, on my walks in the countryside and on trips to the coast: little egrets, crows, starlings, and shore birds. Four themes have emerged : bathing, running, hiding and the high life. These themes all started from observations of birds in different settings; feeding and bathing in the garden; high above me in the tree canopy jostling for position; partially hidden as they move through the wetland grasses of Otmoor ; at the coast darting along the beach feeding amongst the waves. There are individuals and there is the collective. The flock becomes a single entity creating a rhythmic dance of movement. Their rituals and hierarchies seem to share some human traits.
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In my work I aim to create bold, light hearted, quirky images that start from observations and are then developed imaginatively through process and materials. After an art degree, then a career in art teaching, I now spend much of my time making art, learning a little more about it each day with each piece.