Heart Ache

  Originally from London, my father, who was an artist/designer, inspired my early life and love of ‘all things visual’.

I studied textile printing and dyeing at Whiteland’s College Putney in the 1970s, developing a love of colour and design. My tutor, Nora Proud, included photographs of my work in the Batsford book 'Simple Textile Dyeing and Printing'. 
In 2010, I was awarded a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art at Glyndwr University, Wrexham, and have been painting and drawing ever since.  
I have developed an abstract expressionist style of painting reflecting my character and need to search for the ‘otherness’ or ‘intangible’ in life. I visually represent non-visual fragments of experience - often auditory and kinaesthetic - and momentary thoughts and memories. The inspiration for these comes from many sources. I combine dyes and paints with collage and fabrics, layering, folding, shredding and tearing to create texture. I have a fascination with the role that fabric can play in an artwork, and can be quite destructive during the process, and frequently find that the end stages of a painting actually only begin after this destructive phase. This process has kindled an interest in the relationship between destruction and creation. These two appear to walk hand in hand, and I wonder sometimes if they are indeed perhaps inseparable?

I am a founder member of the Inside Out Art Group : http://www.insideoutart.co.uk, and also a member of both the Borderland Visual Arts and Helfa Gelf Art groups. I exhibit and sell my work locally in venues such as Pandy Mill Gallery, The Willow Gallery Oswestry and Theatre Clwyd Mold. In 2010 I was short listed for the Signature Art Awards run by DegreeArt.com, and show and sell work in their gallery in London. In 2010 I was invited to display work in The Artists Alley, San Francisco (Galiara.com). I occasionally work to commission.