Inner Scapes

An exhibition of 38 paintings held at Print Club London between the 17th June and the 24th June 2022

The thirty-six paper based-images exhibited were inspired by a 2017 painting, Technicolour Seascape, and were created in the order they appear. Within this process two large canvased works were generated, which were also included: Sea Embraces Sun and Sun is Held.

Technicolour Seascape was a breakthrough piece for me that captured a clarity of stroke and colour I hadn't achieved before and there was something in the combination of the palette that felt very powerful. The whole process was exhilarating: a mixture of being submerged in the moment and stepping back to watch what was unfolding. It was like a dance between colour, breathing, control and surrender. I realised that two earlier pieces, The Point Between and Fallen Angel both painted in 2012, marked the beginning of this dance. I gave it a name: Inner Scapes.

During the first Covid-19 lockdown, just five months after the birth of my son, I returned to the studio so very hungry for the chance to escape into the dance. These works are the result. The explosions of colour and movement in the paper-based images are safely contained within bordered space, unconsciously expressing the intensity of the wider experience that I was trying to integrate. The 5ft square canvases are neither safe nor contained!

I started by using acrylic on paper then introduced the oil paints one by one. Given my intention to replicate and repeat I was intrigued by the variation in character that emerged in each piece. My original plan was to complete twenty-four works within the paper-based series, but as the process developed and new techniques arose I was driven to do more.

The lightness I found within this creative experience had been all the more present for the potent heaviness that surrounded it. What I feel, in the end, is that Inner Scapes is a celebration of the alchemic nature of Art: the transmutation of loss, separation and isolation birthed into sublime joy and bliss. In this way Art becomes a mathematical equation, a science of equal forces. And I am reminded once again of Arts' ability to lift us all into the dance of being truly alive.

Interiors