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I am British, love to draw and use 'stuff' in my work. Colour will come and go but usually it is the concept of the work that is of most importance to me. Then the means to convery this will often be obvious to me - whether to draw, paint, use collage or perhaps, more rarely, will make a 3D object.
Images of my work can be seen under ‘Galleries’; text to describe the whys and wherefores is below. MANY PIECES ARE FOR SALE; PLEASE CONTACT ME
Galleries 1993 -
I am a stranger in my own life This is the birthplace of my invented people, as I commenced the part time B.A. in Fine Art. ‘My people’ came to life of their own accord. Emotional damage is often hidden beneath and those who came to inhabit my twilight world exhibited a degree of bad behaviour but also an honesty and vulnerability. Here lies betrayal, jealousy, lust and anger, played out spontaneously as I put charcoal and pencil to paper. This body of work reflects a disintegrating relationship and has been my way to express the frustrations, anger and pain of a failed marriage. The pain and anxiety of my long drawn out divorce fuelled expression through a series of huge, violent drawings and savage collages.
Feeling injured, trapped, hurt and not knowing where I quite fitted in anymore could best be expressed through ‘my people’; those people who took on and acted out my emotions and anxieties.
During the time of study for my B.A. I was going through a long drawn out seperation and divorce, bringing ujp two young children onmy own. As I was finishing the course, sister became seriously ill with cancer. I had just completed my B.A. in Fine Art when my sister died and soon after, as I embarked on the M.A., my father had a stroke which left him partially paralayzed.
Galleries 1998 -
Damage Damage – this was the title of my M.A. show and seems apt to sum up so many life changing events over a period of just seven years in my life. Seven years of study, when my husband had left me to raise our two childre, my sister died and my father had a stroke was actually, as far as producing art was concerned, a very fertile time and gave me an outlet for my mixed emotions. This was to sustain me through a troublesome period in my life. Much is hidden; damage and pain which we cannot see; concealed behind layers of denial or perhaps intentional self-deceit. We are misled, misguided into a false sense of security. There are also nastry secrets, physically eating away inside us. If I had let it, this could have been a time of breakdown; a complete falling apart. But with an inbuilt desire to create, my love of materials - ‘stuff’ - along with the necessity to continually produce work for my tutors, and stay operational for my children, I was spurred on. A strange beauty can exist in destruction and decay. I suppose that I found an empathy with distressed materials, their history, a passage of time. The quiet, persistent presence.
Medical art My M.A., which focussed on 'Damage' , let me to research the medical side of this. Having discovered the Welcome Foundation, I visited the librabry on many occasions. I love the images and diagrams I saw in the old books there and really wanted to refer to historical anatomical drawings in my work.
Galleries 2001 -
Mongolian Landscapes Emerging from almost a decade of much sadness and introspection to a time when my children began to stretch their wings, I too felt ready to look beyond my family home. I had the opportunity to travel and began with a tour in Tibet. I was knocked out by this beautiful land and its remarkable history; the atmospheric monasteries and temples deeply affected me. I then ‘discovered’ Mongolia and travelled there many times visiting museums in the capital Ulaan Baagtar, monasteris and the Gobi Desert. One summer I took on the role of 'Artist in Residence' at the Institute of Fine Art in Ulaan Baatar and the following year took part in an 'International Artcamp' creating land art in the middle of nowhere alongside artists from five different countries.
Horses I decided to take a sabbatical from my job in an Arts Centre and spent a few weeks riding across the steppes and living in a ger in a different location each night. Following on from that I spent time volunteering at a centre concerned with reintroducing Przewalski’s Horses, many who were in European zoos, to their natural habitat. Again I lived in a ger surrounded by wild and beautiful landscape, just south of Ulaan Baatar. Each day I would follow 'my' stallion and his harem, making notes from dawn to mid afternoon as the harem made its way from the low down lush green meadows up to the cooler craggy heights. It is an experience I will never forget.
Galleries 2023 -
I love using texture: cloth, wrappings, text, stitch, 'stuff' and will often incorporate these into my work. Here, I have used scraps of fabric from a Dabu print workshop I attended in Jaipur, along with pieces of canvas and linen.
Egyptian influence Ancient Egyptian symbols and culture fascinat me. I first use torn paper and cloth to create a ground upon which to work. The juztapositions between detailed, fine line drawings and a rougher, untidy surface pick up on the excavation of tombs and the contents found therein. I love the imagery of gods, which have been given animal and bird heads; the symbols and heiroglyphs.
Mummified birds The Egyptians' custom to wrap not only their leaders and dearest family members, but also their favourite cats, falcons and so on, to me is totally spell binding. The dignity and ceremony that is attached; plus the delicate linen wrappings, gold thread and jewells are all important in their culture. I am really interested in and taken by the aesthetics of the materials used.
After producing many monochrome collages and feeling in desperate need of colour, I have returned to oil painting. Choosing an abstract form with landscape as an influence, I feel that I am back to my roots as a teenager and being first seduced by 'art.'
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