Who Am I? Well…

A loaded question and far too difficult to answer on my own but as far as my art is concerned I can give you some background.

I have always been on the edge of the art world, I trained as a gilder and spent many years gilding frames for beautiful pieces of art for London galleries and private collections. After many years and just as my career was taking off I left it all behind and moved to New Zealand with my boyfriend, who is now my husband, to learn to fly fixed winged aircraft and to keep my then boyfriend company while he got his commercial helicopter pilots licence, heady days!

We married 23 years ago, I stopped work and raised our son, became a collector of art on a very small scale and kept up my interest of all things beautiful, including art, architecture, sculpture and art galleries, it was while on one of these trips three years ago I decided I would like to start painting, I had no training and no real idea of the kind of things I would paint. I did know however that there was something dormant waiting to come out.

My husband organised a studio for me and I started……

 “The delight is knowing there is more underneath!”

My art isn’t a pre meditated idea that I then reproduce but rather a feeling, usually it starts with a colour. I paint only with knives as I find brushes confining, sometimes I have to wait…..sometimes the paintings come fast, I am always thrilled and delighted to see them, some come totally unannounced as did my series of people, some bubble up slowly over a period of weeks sometimes months.

I name my pieces after they are complete, this then adds another layer and once named transforms them into the complete works.

What’s underneath? This is something that has been a life long intrigue for me both with people and objects and so in my art I find great pleasure in layers, sometimes even painting over paintings, the delight in knowing there is more underneath, more that the eye can see. It gives a great sense of depth and invites the onlooker to look closer, often seeing their own landscape hidden beneath.

The response I have had through two exhibitions in my short period as an artist has been extraordinarily positive and has given me the momentum to continue, I know there is a lot more to come and I look forward to seeing it as I hope you do.