Artist's Statement

My first memory of drawing is using a chalk and slate and trying to illustrate the songs I heard on the wireless. Now I use a blend of mixed media, collage, acrylic paint, soft pastels, graphite and found things collected from urban pavements. All my images have an underlying theme of memento mori, a reminder that all living things, including us, have an allotted time span on this earth. I am fascinated by the marks time leaves on things and love the texture mixed media brings into my images.

Recycling is important, so I make use of unfinished prints, and failed drawings. One series of work was made on portions of an old plaster bathroom ceiling that had to be replaced!  I incorporates rusty metal and wire, even the beautiful fragility of bird bones, whatever I find interesting.

The Japanese art of impermanence, ‘Wasi Sabi’, is the philosophy underpinning my art process. Celebrating the natural cycle of growth and decay, it questions our perceived notions of beauty, believing this quality can be found in the ordinary, and imperfect.

Influences include cellular structure, striations on rocks, constantly, by landscapes seen from above, my mind is a patchwork of memories, of paintings, books read, life experience that can be dipped into and shaped into new imagery. Making abstract work is both exciting and scary because, unlike figurative art, there are no visual references. I never know when I start what a finished work will look like but rely on balancing shape, colour, and texture, to set mood, then work until it feels ‘just right’.

The last series of two-dimensional works on paper are slightly different. To my surprise, many seem to relate to world news and events like climate change and even Trump’s fake news. The pictures I am doing at the moment centre on water, either the sea or the Humber River using looser marks than early lanscape work.

Artist's Bio

1960s      Bath Academy of Art

1970s      Central School of Art, Postgraduate studies

1990s      University of Humberside (MA in Art and Design

1989-92  Voluntary work at the Rotunda Museum, Scarborough

1997-99  Artist in residence at Scarborough Sixth Form College

1998        Artist camp for five weeks, working with tribal artists

My career has been interesting. A mother of two, teacher, lecturer, designer and illustrator, curator, gardener, growing amenity trees for twelve years on a local Estate. I exhibited widely in the United Kingdom and have work in private collections.

In January 1989, I began studying for an MA in Art and Design, but the death of my artist husband in the August, meant a life changing shift. I spent the next few years cataloguing and curating retrospective exhibition 0f his art legacy, before returning to the MA in 1993.

The new millennium saw me making and framing large works on old plaster. I married again, but before long my husband became terminally ill, dying in 2011. Unable, during this time to continue art practice, I concentrated on creative writing, mainly poetry.

Moving permanently to East Yorkshire in 2013, I began to make and show work again. Lockdown has proved a fruitful time. I began showing work on Instagram and joined the Lockdown Still Life group. This year, I joined  the Visual Artists Association, showing work in their Online Spring Exhibition. No longer isolated and with so many opportunities, It  is an especially exciting time to be a visual artist.

Exhibition CV