Semantics are important and finding the right words to describe my work can be tricky. I like the word
‘particular’. It suggests choice and specificity as opposed to more broad ideas. Much of my work has to
do with intentionality and the critical faculties required to move the work along.
I don’t have a goal or idea to work towards but rather follow a process of mark and response ; feeling
my way through, often with the idea of ‘disrupt’ at the forefront of my thoughts, until something finally
feels authentic. This consistent commitment to the visual elements of line, tone, colour, pattern,
rhythm and gesture drive the work together with a sensitivity to surface texture and edges/ meeting
points. I am drawn to the quality of surface which is why I like using oil paints and vintage papers for
collage as they carry with them traces of lives past and a softness which I’m drawn to.
I trained at Winchester School of Art in the eighties - a very painterly place back then and have pursued
my own work - interspersed with teaching and raising a family ever since. We lived in Penwith for a
while at Sennen Cove and St Ives. I estimate it took me about three years of painting full time before I
felt I was making my own marks, developing my own language and the British Modernist aesthetic still
informs my practice.
