ARTIST STATEMENT

“I sense a threshold: light to silence, silence to light – an ambiance of inspiration, in which the desire to be, to express, crosses with the possible. Light to silence. Silence to light crosses in the sanctuary of art.”
LOUIS KAHN, Architect 

I’m drawn to simple objects and spaces that resonate stillness, ambiguity or mystery; the lingering memory of human presence, a quiet moment captured in transient, fleeting light.

My painting practice explores the psychology of space through the transience and transformative qualities of light; the relationship between nature and man-made structures in which interior spaces connect to the outside world through the passage and manipulation of light.

In a real sense, my practice is a continuum, the natural outcome of a lifetime steeped in the visual arts, interior architecture and design. As a design editor and interiors stylist I worked with leading architectural photographers ‘chasing the light’ to capture the essence of a space. At a deeper level, the ‘felt’ or emotive qualities of the subject intrigued me most, and gave impetus to leave publishing to explore a different, more visceral mode of expression through painting.

Drawing inspiration from the solid forms and abstract qualities of empty Brutalist architecture, my association with space is more symbolic. The paintings are not a descriptive image of a known place, rather an accretion of spaces. Metaphysical, not actual. The voids and passages are liminal spaces through which we can transition, rooms within rooms. Some are secretive inner chambers that are metaphors for the unconscious. Others suspend time. They simply ask us to slow down, to pause and reflect.

The mutable textures of stone, concrete and water invite a haptic understanding, a perception through touch. My process is a slow and deliberate accretion of translucent oil glazes built up over a period on months to imbed luminosity and the atmospherics of time, age, decay and memory into the surface of the canvas.