New Paintings and Keeping to Art Deadlines During Coronavirus

'A Global Connection,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 100 x 140 cm

During this exceptionally difficult and challenging time when our daily routines are drastically altered, I'm trying to keep a focus on my artwork and to stick to my deadlines. It's not easy because at times I lapse into a lethargy and become anxious. Then the 'What If?' keeps me awake at night. Last night neither my husband or I could sleep fully and at 6.30am we ended up eating some trifle!

Any minor feeling of illness sends your mind racing: Is this coronavirus? I've suffered from a really bad flu (6 weeks ago) that then went in to my ear and I had to have antibiotics, and any twinge of pain or health abnormality now instantly brings to mind 'Do I need to self-isolate?' Luckily, both my husband and I are coping and keeping our distance from people but it's hard because you have to keep alert to all the things you now can not do.

However, I was really pleased this week because in between doing the daily 30 works 30 days art challenge, I managed to finish a painting for a Biennale in China later this year. I only stretched my canvas in the second week of March, and it's a big one - 100 x 140 cm - and I never thought I'd get it finished and submitted by the deadline of April 15th! The last stages of this painting were really hard and even now I have to remind myself to stop finding things I could have tweaked. 

The theme of the Biennale was Home and Co-existence, and my idea was to paint a home situation in which people are reading newspapers each with a different current topic on the front. So there are the themes of nature, the world, relationships, and home. I've included animals, water, fruit, a teapot, homes, and a butterfly which is symbolic of the sharing of thoughts. The people are linked by the red chairs. 

My thought was that people co-exist, wherever they are, through this daily ritual and sharing of thoughts on current issues. I really enjoyed painting those newspaper fronts and the theme of newspaper readers stretches back to my time living in Cyprus when this was an ongoing series of oil paintings. I have extended the theme in this new painting not only in terms of the shapes and paint application but through the way I've depicted the abstracted forms on the newspapers. None of it was foreplanned; I always let the painting guide me.

I submitted the work about a week ago to an online form. It was actually very difficult to follow the instructions and took some time but I feel a sense of achievement that it's finally submitted. I hope it will be accepted!

This week I've been making a small painting every day for the daily challenge. I'm going to post some of them next. 

An Artist's Insights in to her Themes and Sources For Painting

'After the Deluge, the Light Rose Over the Mountains,' acrylic on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

This is today's Facebook post:

TWO of my favourite starting points for my paintings are mountains and waterfalls/rivers. I like to use them to explore paint and an idea of space, in particular, to give a sense of the physical space we feel in landscape which is always so different wherever we go. This has fascinated me since I was a child and it took me a while to realise that the actual sensation of space and 'being' in the land is at the root of my abstract-figurative compositions. As a child I used to imagine myself dancing through landscapes and this is what I like to do with paint!
Both of these, from this year, are about being in landscape and feeling the elements and its changing nature, in this case mountains and flooding (which we have had a lot of in the UK), and they are paintings of hope because in the end the light comes through. They are also about the presence of landscape as a being in itself.

I find it really useful to keep thinking about my core values and themes, even if they keep changing, as they always do either step by step or through a sudden insight brought about by trying out a different process.

I would add to this that my work tends to have several areas of focus as I cast out my net to explore the elements I'm interested in. This sense of space is one of the things that has always enthralled me because my earliest memories are of journeys with my parents, often by car, as we travelled to visit relatives in Scotland or Cornwall. These tended to be quite long journeys and I sat quietly feeling the different 'vibes' that came from the land. 

'Three Escape the Deluge,' acrylic and ink on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

I still imagine myself dancing through landscapes and landscape memories. I love that feeling of my own small size in relation to epic landscapes with huge mountain vistas, or being on very flat, open landscape where there is a certain factor of vulnerability. But the theme has widened recently to include the thoughts of environmental concerns, climate change and the eternal precarious aspect of being a human being.

I like to think that my use of paint - bold brush strokes, forms that suddenly appear, an emotional reaction to the paint - are all part of this dance and that I also echo Nature.

To be continued.

New Paintings and Some Great Exhibition News

'Walking Towards a Shared Future,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 120 x 160 cm

This week I received some good news: this painting has been selected for the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale which this year will be showcasing artwork from 125 countries and will open on 30th August 2019. I was really pleased to find that my painting will be included and it will be my third time in this Biennale (previously, 2015/2017) and my second international art Biennale this year.

I painted this specifically for the Biennale which had the theme of 'A Colourful World and a Shared Future.' I was thinking about how the world is not groupings of separate living organisms; we all rely on one another - people, animals, plants, insects - in order to survive. The world is one organism. I was also thinking about my own relation to nature which is a deeply spiritual one and how I love to 'go missing' in the land. This could be described as my archetypal landscape because my favourite journeys always include mountains, distant vistas, colourful fields and fruit trees, and a pathway to a metaphorical future. In this case the path is conveyed by coloured bricks to represent mankind and the communities around the world and also our connection with everything else. I always feel that art can give messages to people and I hope mine is a joyful one full of optimism.

I painted this large canvas fairly last minute as so much else happened last year and I was only 5 weeks before the deadline for posting the submission materials in December! I had an idea of what I wanted to paint, the two figures being pivotal to the expression, but other than that I let the image develop and find its own colours and shapes. It is a bit more figurative than some of my recent work but I have never seen myself as an artist who can only go along one line.

Meanwhile, this week I worked on 2 new paintings which are also based on my feelings about being in the landscape and which I will post soon.

To be continued.

March 19th, First real day of Spring

After 4 months of not being able to paint in situ, I was finally able to go out on Saturday. It was the first clear blue sky, the first truly warm air of the year. As I walked up the long drive into the grounds at Burrswood, I could hardly wait to open my watercolour book. The bright sunlight etched skeletal branches with gold, and deep shadows flooded the emerald grass. I usually paint outdoors in January and February, as I like to experience the minute changes to the colours as the seasons progress, but this winter has been too cold, wet, or snow-bound.

Painting outdoors is important to me because through this experience I can re-evaluate elements that are relevant to my studio-based (and more imaginative-based) paintings. I love painting in front of nature, I also love re-assembling the experiences on canvas away from nature. Everything feeds into everything else. Something seen months earlier suddenly pops up as a shape or colour on my canvas.

('March 19th,' watercolour, 16ins x 12ins, painted in situ/ 'The Best May Blossom Ever,' Acrylic on board, 61cm x 91cm, studio painting)