Making a Drawing

Make a drawing , shows the physical proccess of making a drawing and speed.

Making a Drawing

The Painted Van

The Painted Van

Painted Cup

Blue Absract

Blue Abstract Painting

Coastal Erosion

Coastal Erosion

Abstract

Abstract Painting

Painting in a bag

'Painting in a bag' explores the interdisciplinary media used within current practice. The question of where  the canvas ,or frame, physically extends to and whether the work,  in current thinking could be construed as a painting is interesting.

A House with a view

A house with a view, is a continuation of work from the portrait painting, which  links the heritage of the park today with the past.

All the Worlds a Stage

This painting in working progress has been inspired by the History of Christchurch Park and the Mansion house which is close to where I live.Our House was eventually  built on the original grounds of the Holy Trinity Monastery.
The land our house sits on ,was used by monks to grow vegetables.This changed when Henry V111 dissolved all the monasteries and so Edmund Withipoll built Christchurch Mansion in 1548.Our land  became  part of the rolling landscape and his family's view.

It is interesting,to imagine the incredible back drop or stage to where the the painting is being created,now.  In the past I have explored the many family portraits in the Mansion and wanted to paint my own portraits of my family.
I find it exciting to join a time line of Human Ancestry, all be it not my own, with my family contribution.Also every portrait I have ever seen has a slightly all too real grandeur about it.I wanted to explore this component of painting portraiture , to find out whether,my sitters , whilst caught in a physical frame, might remain informal.
After the Withipolls and the Devereux families owned the Mansion, it was purchased by Claude Fonnereau.
 He was believed to be from a successful Huguenot silk weaving family.This is personally interesting to me, because my fathers family are Huguenot descendants.
This creative link to now and the past intrigues me.

Shapes and Colours

Shapes and Colours

With this series of work I concentrated on  building a strong coloured background to alter the colour quality of white applied to the surface.I also liked the idea of 'fragility', which evolved , through working on the piece.

Details from recent work -Fine China

In my recent work , there are several layers of paintings beneath the finished surface. Some of these layers are a complete digression from the original idea or concept or the work, that  you see in any of the finished works.
 The paintings are developed from drawings and are initially created by drawing with paint. However the forms and shapes develop their own discourse and precipitate changes of thought, intention and decision making within the  directions of the painting surface .
Once the shift in composition gains momentum the question is how far to take it? There is always a risk that the painting which may have( perceptibly magical moments) in it , could be destroyed. The conversation between myself as Artist and work of art is a direct one .
 This is the most fascinating element of painting, you can't control the medium and what ever is created comes from the reality of where you are at that moment. The colours and shapes interact,  and have as many emotional gradients as human beings.
More and more  I am understanding the method or process of the way I create work. I am wondering whether other Artists cover and hide work that they don't want to project to a viewer?It is an interesting idea to almost unearth or discover the past of each painting, which remains in the present as 'the object'.  The texture of the painting has partly created the history of it's past, so the past informs the future, just as  fallen dust recreates form.

Series of postmodern still lifes

The paintings are framed and presented within the social and historical context of home

The history of the walls in my house have adorned in all probability typical still life paintings, landscapes and portraits. The house was built in 1872. The walls of the house are crucial to the context of the still life paintings created. The use of oils within the paintings was an imperative to further connect the past with the present future. The importance of painting with oils was to further convey a historical trace which threads to today’s work.

This considers the materiality of the painting as an object complicit to concept. The presentation of each work is part of the fabric of the walls within the rooms of the house.

Portrait of the Artist

The two pieces work together to explore preconceptions of gender and human behaviour within history and time.

Performance Painting

An idea that begins with thought becomes tangible and exists through the medium of paint.

With this series of paintings I carried out mark making on several different days. The marks were composed at erratic times whenever I needed to walk through the hall where the canvas was hung. I stopped - picked an oil colour randomly and built a matrix of marks across a three week experimental period.

The aim was to place a thought that became an action expressed physically. This has been my first performance painting. What framed the piece was the relationship between passive and active time echoed within the painting.

Snow Installation

The idea behind the Snow Installation was to make a transient piece of work. The purpose of the work was to explore the idea of change or shift, which could be a physiological or Intellectual response to a question. Hence each snow Sculpture or Installation is different to symbolise a change or a shift in thinking and being.

Behind the Mask - The Artists Collection

Visit the Exhibtion Behind the Mask Exhibition, Ipswich Art School Gallery 

Chalk Board Drawings

A series of Chalk board Drawings were initiated during a seven day period. Each Drawing therefore wiped out the previous day’s Drawing.

The successive drawings were (built on the History of previous drawings) and allow visible overlapping of imagery. This suggested the idea of an inner narrative. Here, text was partially visible (building on the idea) that, we have many forms of work, to do, at any one moment.

The drawings were restricted by medium and media. They were made from short bursts of work and residue ideas and concerns. The reason the drawings were made on the chalk board was to overlap my domestic and Artistic self. The drawings are one aspect of Identity. The black board is used to outline the week’s calendar, but I wanted to use it as a canvas for my work. The restriction enforced by the crude implement of chalk restricted each drawn outcome, just as my physical being and movements are repeated and restricted by cooking or laying the table.

In this work I was interested in exploring the idea of creativity or creative output through restriction. The element of restriction is echoed in my daily life, (through routine and duties) which is repeated daily. In this work I am also interested in the idea of incremental learning, building a series of drawings and learning from each one. 

One of the important elements of drawing for me, is to reflect and relate a drawing to the world we live in and by so doing externalise a thought.