CURRENT WORK

My current work deals with what I call ‘improvised fictions’. As a child, I liked to invent and I have allowed myself a freer rein to do this by being more playful and taking more risks with surface, scale and composition. Working from observation, memory and invention, I create work that looks as if it has a narrative, but is more about waking dreams.

Themes of confinement and escape show interiors filled with furniture including tables laden with objects, chairs and sofas, chests and lamps. Often there is a window framed by curtains or a mirror reflecting another part of the room or an open doorway; these all provide escape routes. Sometimes there are people in the room – daydreaming or conversing. I am also revisiting themes of formal gardens and have added to this an interest in secret locations that hold a magical fascination for me. Often these are theatrical in nature, translated through stronger use of contrast.

I am interested in pictorial space and how changes of scale and perspective create alternative narratives. In March 2021 I spent a month at Merz, in Sanquhar, Scotland. During this residency I made several large collaged drawings and experimented, for the fist time, with dioramas, making  cardboard theatres out of collaged paintings. 

The same woman is seen three times, spinning, allotting and cutting thread.