How would you describe your art work?
My paintings are realistic & representational landscapes of West Penwith, but not like photographs; they are hyper-real, or more than real. I look for the symmetries & similarities of patterns, the inherent fractals of growth & movement, and emphasize them to try to give the paintings a strong visual and emotional impact. I also look for the glimpses of the Animate Landscape – the Genius Loci, Spirits of the Land, or personality of a place, and try to create images to show these to others. Often this animate landscape shows itself in faces and forms which remind us of human features, which personalizes it and gives us more connection to it, so many of my paintings have rocks or trees with faces, or have shapes which are like people or creatures. But whether I am painting smiley rocks, ancient sites or beautiful sunsets, it is all manifestations of the Devine in the landscape, and is about the Soul’s response to beauty.
Is this the inspiration for your work?
Yes, my inspiration comes from my love of the natural beauty & power of the landscape, a love and connection which is informed by my beliefs. To me, everything in the world is connected in a great web of spirit, or soul, which is the Devine. This web of spirit, or spark of Devine life force, manifests in everything to some extent, but is more apparent and accessible in natural surroundings than in artificial surroundings. The closer you are to the elements, to the wild & natural land, the more this Spirit manifests, and especially so in South West Cornwall – many people say they can feel the power & magic of the land getting stronger the further west they come.
How do you find your subject matter; do you find it difficult to choose what to paint?
I find places and views and ideas every time I go out onto the land, so I have whole queues of paintings lined up and waiting. Deciding what to paint next is sometimes a problem, because they are all jumping up and down in my head, saying “Paint me!”, “No, paint me!” Sometimes though, I want to paint a particular place but need to go back again and again before I find the exactly perfect combination of season, time of day, foliage, weather and view-point. There are several ancient sites I have wanted to paint for a long time but never found the right combination, so they are still waiting.
How were you first attracted to art, where did it begin?
The household I grew up in was very old-fashioned & a small girl-child was expected to do housework but if I was quietly painting or drawing, or reading, I was usually left alone & escaped the cleaning! Art was “acceptable” in the family because there were several professional artists in previous generations, on my father’s side, so I suppose I have a genetic inheritance too. Also my father was an architect & did watercolors as a hobby, so there were drawing and painting items always available. There was a very large library of old books in the house, and I read unsuitable things voraciously at an early age – the original Grimm’s fairy tales, the Ingoldsby Legends, bizarre stories such as “The Dawnchild”, whole sets of Dickens, Shakespeare, and all the other major authors, and huge quantities of myths & folklore. These undoubtedly fuelled my imagination, especially since I always pictured everything visually that I was reading. When I was a teenager I vowed that I would always be an artist, but in those days one was expected to do what your parents decreed, and they decided that I should take an Education Degree. So with one of those compromises that suits no-one, I took an Education Degree with art as one of the subjects, but I did not enjoy teaching and I got side-tracked into craft, and for most of my working life was a handloom weaver and tailoress. It has only been since moving to West Penwith 12 years ago that I have been able to paint again, and it is wonderful beyond belief that I am now able to earn my income following my heart’s path.
Have your paintings developed or changed over the last few years?
Essentially I will always paint the Spirit in the landscape, so that will not change – but there have been other changes. Firstly, my work is getting more and more detailed & fine, and the work I did ten years ago when I first started painting full time now looks a little rough & coarse in places. Secondly, I am increasingly interested in different times of day & different lighting, and have been painting evening & night-time scenes, with moonlight and firelight. These are very challenging & often have me in despair; recently I completed a painting, called “Ancient Lights” which contained candle-light on a window sill as well as a full moon and a bonfire & panorama view – this took over 1,000 hours and I said I would never do anything so very difficult again. However, I am now planning one which I have a feeling will be very much more difficult – but I have to try! So perhaps when I started I was looking for simple subjects, and now I am drawn to whatever might be the most excruciatingly difficult – but also the most interesting. Thirdly, I have been experimenting with the slightly different techniques required for painting on different surfaces.
So, what media do you use? How would you describe your working techniques?
I have tried nearly all painting and drawing materials, including lovely new playthings like water soluble oil crayons, and soluble ink pencils, but for me oil paint will always be the true, the real, the most professional medium, and all my work for sale is with oil paint. I love its qualities, which have an unrivalled richness of colour and “feel” and range of technical possibilities. I paint on hardboard and canvas board which are both non absorbent, and recently I have been trying absorbent mount-board as a surface, and several other grounds such as wooden panels. I combine classic technical methods of “thin to fat & dark to light”, with Pre-Raphaelite painting techniques of layers of thin translucent glazes on a brilliant white ground, and I build up the paintings in several layers.
What exhibitions have you held, & what exhibitions or projects have you planned for the future?
I first exhibited in 1999 as part of a group show, and since then have had eleven exhibitions, all in SW Cornwall, five of them solo shows, two jointly with Izumi Omori, & the others as part of group shows. This last year, 2008, has been particularly busy with several exhibitions, so I now need to catch up with all my outlets which take cards & prints and also I am planning a couple of different sets of paintings which will become future exhibitions. As my paintings take such a long time, these next exhibitions will probably not be until 2010 0r 2011. However, there are now several Galleries in West Penwith which have my original paintings on a regular basis (Just Fine Art in St Just, The Roundhouse in Sennen, Market House Galleries in Penzance & The Little Picture Gallery in Mousehole) some of which have considerable space, so new paintings will appear in these places too.
What impact/message do you want your work have for people who view it?
If people think my landscapes are beautiful or interesting and simply enjoy them, then that is fantastic. If my work helps people appreciate the wondrous beauty of the land herself and have more general appreciation of Nature, then that is better again. Beyond that, if people see the Spirit in the landscape, the Genius Loci, in my work, and it helps in any extent at all to lead them to a deeper connection with Spirit, or Soul, then I will have achieved indeed.
