Artist’s Statement

My work is abstract but is based on landscape. It developed from many years' painting from nature using gardens and homes as inspiration. I believe it allows the viewer to escape from the boundaries of life. The paintings have many layers and spaces to which the viewer can imagine themselves wanting to go. Life is not one picture but a multiplicity of scenes and images fighting for control. The paintings are broken up and reordered just as a collage would be.
 
The square series of paintings have evolved from the previous ones by using a limited palette and the same colours in a different combination. This way everything links to what has gone before. In developing a work, it is never completely clear how it will evolve but that is the joy of doing it. Sometimes a contrasting colour is introduced just as it is in nature. Occasionally, something, when it does not work, has to be modified. Obvious as it seems, but a piece of art work can develop in different ways and may never please the artist. Each square is a painting in itself and I play with scale, selecting images and breaking up the spaces. These paintings, once completed, demand that the eye moves around the canvas focusing on different areas, creating a competing game between the individual parts and the totality of the piece.
 
There are many ways in which life can develop and many paths to take. There are many solutions to the same problems and situations. Often time is a major factor and not many people have the luxury of hindsight to know how best to resolve the issues that face them or have an adequate support network. One builds on what has gone before. Life can be seen as a series of small decisions each one leading to the next one rather than one big picture too big to take in. A fresh look or another opinion can give a new lease of life. In life, people are constantly reorganising and balancing their lives to cope with the stresses of work, health, home and family. My paintings seek to reflect this diversity in life.
                                                                                                                                                                            
Some of my work in the past has been likened to a patchwork quilt. This is quite a good description of the series of images. Quilts when sewed by the women of the family were something that they could do in stages and often had a high value in terms of social history and heritage and now recognised as having artistic worth. Computers now can break up images into squares but there is something about the art of painting which is not just about the composition but about the execution of the work and the pleasure of using the paint. It is not a quick fix but something which involves the mind totally and completely in the art of creation. It is there to be looked at and appreciated for the quality of paint, colour and texture. Life is not about quick fixes.