CURRENT WORK – Improvised Fictions

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. 

An oil painting of five people sitting round a table with objects

GALLERY

An oil painting of five people sitting round a table with objects
an oil painting of two girls drawing on a steamed up window
an oil poainting of an abandoned garden
People are sitting round a dining table with crockery on it.
Five children are having a picnic.
Three children are on a beach with a boat in the background.
Four children are standing in a row.
A girl is doing a handstand. There is a hopscotch behind her.
Four girls are lazing around in a room. One is playing the piano.
The same woman is seen three times, spinning, allotting and cutting thread.
Five children standing in a row.
Four children are having a holiday in Orkney. They are on the beach.
There is a gooseberry bush at the bottom of the garden.
A painting of a perfect French house.
People are walking in a square in the late afternoon.
Two children are sitting on a patterned carpet
A girl is polishing a brass object next to a table with other brass objects.
Children are playing in a school playground.
A girl is standing by a gate in a garden.
Three children are sitting in a room with curtains, carpet and fancy chandelier
a painting of a girl on a carpet
Four children playing on a blue carpet
children playing games in a playground
A diorama of a colourful landscape
Some children and animals are in an open landscape with a big sky featuring the milky way.
Two children are having a picnic in a dreamy place.
A girls is in a greenhouse with huge dying tulips. She is looking out at the sky.
A girl with red hair is standing in a room with furniture and an arched doorway.
Three women sit at a table by an open French window
Three girls languish in a room with a tall piece of furniture
A girl sits in a yellow room with an abstract painting behind her.
A rose garden at night with trellises and a stormy sky.
Two women wearing purple are standing in a yellow room. Behind them is a wall of decorative paper and above them is a glittering chandelier.
There is a room with a bed, a wicker chair, a rug and other furniture.. A pair of children's shoes lies on the floor.
We are in a red room. A woman is sitting on the sofa and two girls are standing; all are looking out of the window. There is a decorative chair in the foreground.
A table is laden with white crockery and fruit. there is a chaise-longue in the foreground
two girls are in an exotic garden with cactii and a view of the sea behind.
A woman and a man are getting dressed in front of a tall mirror.