Influences

Painting and creating has always been central to my soul. Initially, I painted and designed fabric as a textile designer, which evolved into working more with paint on canvas. I am now a full time painter with many years of exhibiting and teaching in the UK and overseas.

I am in love with the Scottish landscape, and how it is affected and transformed by the changing lights and hues of the seasons. Land and water are endlessly exciting to me and provide a rich source of inspiration.

I have become increasingly captivated and obsessed with the movement and very essence of the sea in all its’ sensory personifications. I have always been drawn to water, it feels like home. The everchanging sounds and rhythms, the feeling of weightlessness and sense of freedom it bestows on me. I attempt to capture in paint its great power and also its ability to soothe and heal.

I use colour boldly in my painting and to me, colour is powerful and visceral. It has the potential to invoke great emotion and perfectly capture the remembered essence of a space in a time. I think having synesthesia, ( a condition in which information meant to stimulate one sense, stimulates several senses at the same time ) heightens my reaction to colour and my use of it.

My paintings are intuitive, abstract and often born from a combination of en plein air sketches, photographs and studio exploration. They then take on a life of their own and become a combination of bold brushstrokes, intuitive colour combinations and measured linework. I paint primarily in acrylics on canvas, wood panel and paper, building up layers of glazes and textures, sometimes incorporating elements of collage as part of the narrative.

From time to time , I also produce small series of photographic paintings which are available as giclee prints on museum heritage paper. These are created using fragments of paintings and personal photographs collaged and layered digitally to create an image. They inform and add to my working process cross feeding the analogue with the digital.