Artist Statement

I am an abstract painter with Modernist influences. My work is inspired by travel, mid-century art, and childhood memories of Scandinavian Design. I have a strong connection to the Bauhaus movement and the Modernists, whose important formal qualities are harmony or balance, rhythms, and proportion. I’ve worked as a creative practitioner for many years in the areas of visual merchandising, styling, and photography; this has educated my eye and helped me to understand colour and composition. I have a passion for both art and design and celebrate the freedom to overlap the two.

A trip to India in 2019 proved groundbreaking for me. I was exploring textile printing and flew to Jaipur to attend a block printing course. There I quickly built up a visual diary with many images of abstract close-up shots of textures and colours. The distinct beauty of the very old and colourful buildings, covered in dust and dirt, captured my attention. Evidence of this can be seen in my work where I use a combination of sanding, building up layers of paint, and final washes to create a film over the painting. The outcome is reminiscent of those aged buildings.

I take many photos to add to my visual journal for reference. In the studio, my time is spent freely drawing or working with collage as a way of loosening up and discovering various abstract shapes that speak to me. My painting technique is a long process of building up painted surfaces with abstract shapes and transparent washes on canvas or wood, then sanding them down. I repeat this process until I am satisfied with the harmony of elements in the final artwork.