Here is an invitation to our exhibition.
This year I will be exhibiting with four other professional artists in the delightful village of Blewbury at The Clubhouse. Visit to feast your eyes on Yvette Phillips’ exquisite embroideries and Josie Clouting’s loose, expressive landscapes. We’ll be exhibiting alongside Eleanor Wong who is showing vibrant energetic semi-abstracts in oils, often including animals. Julian March is a potter and has a colourful range of ceramics which are both functional and decorative. The artists will be there to chat to and you are welcome to have a quiet browse while enjoying the variety of work.
STILL LIFE
I am currently on a quest to embody atmosphere and light in my still life paintings and I want people to pause and feel the stillness and the beauty of the simple everyday objects that I love.
The dappled morning series began on holiday when I had woken early and tip-toed into a room that had the dawn light reflected through greenery onto the opposite walls in dappled rectangles of light. The world was mine. This sense of transience is combined with the beauty of everyday objects and fruit. Humble objects have a patina of loveliness because of their timeless shape and the history you can see and feel. It is symbolic of wabi-sabi, where beauty is seen in the imperfect, and nothing is casually discarded.
I have been practicing the principles of mending in a way that beautifies a tear or a worn hole in a garment. My canvas is often ripped and repaired in a way that adds beauty and integrity, reminding the viewer of the idea of the transience of fabric and reinforcing the concept that the canvas is a surface that is as important as the subject that it depicts. Repairing fabric in such as way comes from the same philosophical origins as the mending of pottery with gold. The brokenness is acknowledged, repaired and beautified and is known in Japan as Sashiko’.
THE MENDING PROJECT
I am exploring the beauty and necessity of mending whether it is mending emotions or mending clothing. Women have traditionally had the role of mending in many different ways; caring for the well-being of friends and family as well making and mending the family’s clothing. Kintsugi, Boro and Sashiko are all Japanese forms of mending which embrace and beautify imperfection. Each diptych is in oils over collage, often incorporating gold, copper, lace or stitching.
My watercolours are about an abundance of flowers loosely drawn and flooded with colour. I was thrilled that my painting Bluebells and salt dish was selected for the Royal Institute of watercolours at the Mall Galleries last year.
Dappled morning with Mimosa 120cm x 90cm; oils on canvas
Morning Breeze 120 x 100cm; oils on canvas
5 Silver birches and 3 pears 57cm x 54cm (framed size); oils on panel
Blue bottle & Salt Dish –
selected for Mall Gallery Royal Institute of Watercolours
(sold, but giclees are available on request)
I hope to see you at the exhibition if you are anywhere nearby.. If you come please introduce yourself if I don’t know you.
For general info about Artweeks, visit https://www.artweeks.org/
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