Seems to be a 'two for one' month for those of you who receive my newsletters. I have this overwhelming need to wrap some extra words around the thought process behind the pieces in my new exhibition SHIFT  exploring layers of perception. There has always been debate about whether an artist should say anything at all about their work, or just let people look and decide for themselves. Artist’s are definitely on either side of the fence on this one. Bear with me this time…

With this new work, earlier marks and forms have become central to the painting instead of being one of many. More importantly the forms begin to ‘speak’ with each other. As I stood in front of a large, soft blue form I had just painted, I clearly felt a kind of sadness. I was not feeling sad, so this was exciting. As shapes move around the canvas I find that like people, some forms want to be beside each other, some do not. Here editing and sacrifice come in to play.

In some pieces I’ve used obvious line as separation to explore visually how each of us sees things from our own perspective. In other paintings line is used to express not only movement and the substance of something but also to suggest what might have been there before. It’s similar in a drawing when you see the pencil marks of positioning that have been left in. There is a suggestion of calm, atmospheric space surrounding textured, vibrant colour in this series. 

Bring your own experience to view these paintings and see how form (and line) speak to you.