Artistic practice and process
What i Create
My final pieces are mainly oils or acrylics on canvas, as I enjoy the versatility and texture of the surface and the depth of colour that can be achieved from layering paints. I have recently begun to explore more expressive pieces in mixed media collage, inks and gouache and am playing with incorporating this into final pieces to explore different methods of communicating experience.
The majority of my work could be described as abstract realism, but I also create purely abstract pieces that explore emotion via colour and shape alone.
Using limited abstraction in my landscape and still life work allows me to communicate feelings and inner sensory experience, while the maintaining a link to our shared visual experience.
This duality is a reflection of the lives we all inhabit; a readable outer presentation combined with a complex less communicable inner world.
How i work
Finding a subject
I regularly record the world around me using both photography and watercolour sketches. I revisit interesting locations and subjects numerous times, reworking sketches and rephotographing.
I then develop these 'starters' back at my studio in watercolour, gouache, acrylic and collage, until I feel ready to work them into a finished piece.
The length of this process varies, from days to years, and I usually work on a number of different pieces at once, to allow me to escape from the intensity of emotions they can provoke.
Music
Music is an essential part of my process. It enables me to reconnect with an experience or feeling in a very immediate and intense way.
Once I have decided on a subject, I curate a playlist that I listen whenever I work on that piece. This method allows me to continue a thought or feeling across sessions, and enter fully into creating no matter what is happening in my life.
Why i paint
I have always felt the impulse to create, to express my vivid emotions and imaginings. As a child, my head was filled with stories, song and colour. I found it hard to find stillness and cope with the overwhelming rush of the world. My paternal grandfather (a unique individual) greatly encouraged me to be creative, to continually inquire and experiment, without worrying about the outcome. I began painting almost as soon as I could hold a brush, spending many happy hours copying zoological illustrations from books and creating landscapes filled with the animals of my imagination, sharing these with family and hoping that Tony Hart would one day show my work in his TV gallery. I proudly won drawing competitions at holiday camps and primary school and could see no other future than becoming an artist.
As I entered my teens, in the early 80s, the economic realities of life kicked in and, teen anxiety about being weird or different meant that, I became much more private and less confident about my art, I struggled deeply with attending school, despite being academically able, I hated the pressure to conform and did everything I could to escape. I scraped a number of reasonable GCSEs but was asked to leave sixth form when my attendance didn't improve. I was then faced with the reality of adult life, where not having a job was not an option and late 80s Rochdale offered little opportunity for creative careers.
Then followed years of careers and education boom & bust; I was never without work or education, and I threw myself into a number of interesting roles (product design, civil engineering, chemical laboratory work and recruitment to name a few). I was always reasonably successful for couple of years, but after a while I hit either absolute boredom or burnout - usually both. In my mid 40s I began to paint regularly again, attending a local art school to gain skills, confidence and accountability.
For me, creating art is the only place that I can fully express myself. It allows me to shut out the world, find stillness and just be. However, sharing the output of the hours spent creating is still difficult. I struggle to overcome the discomfort of my work being misunderstood or disliked. However, when I am able to overcome this fear, it is moving and fulfilling - experiencing people's reactions - whether positive or negative.
Neurodivergence and Mental Health
I have always found life both a beautiful, vivid, exhilarating experience, and an exhausting repetitive battle. I both love to be with people and experience new horizons and yet need frequent solitude and absolute autonomy. These competing desires and needs have led to a lifelong struggle in terms of mental health.
Losing my father at 10, my paternal grandfather at 13, and my brother at 19 exacerbated my tendency towards both black moods and risk-taking behaviours. In my 20s, I experienced long bouts of depression and shorter intense periods of hyper mood.
Although these periods were challenging, it was not until I became a mother for the second time, in 2009, that things really came unstuck. Following a suicide attempt I was diagnosed Bipolar in 2011. Then followed a decade of trialling mood-stabilisers and anti-depressants which, while keeping the darkest thoughts at bay, didn’t offer any real lasting relief.
Following the discovery of a strong familial link to autism, in 2019, I began to question whether this would be a more relevant explanation of my difficulties. I chose to move away from medication and talking therapy, by living a more autism friendly life, and I was finally diagnosed autistic at 50.
I am most likely AuDHD (Autistic & ADHD) but feel the autism diagnosis gives me the level of understanding that I need at present.
It has been a long, bumpy, journey from the frequently misunderstood, impulsive, daydreaming child to the self-accepting autistic middle aged woman. The two golden threads that have kept me moving forward are family and making art.
I hope that my art speaks to both Neuro Divergent and Neuro Typical people, improving understanding of both our differences and commonalities, and the value of inclusive societies. For me being Autistic in this fast paced, rapidly changing world, is complex. I find that almost every aspect of being an autistic woman is both an advantage and a disadvantage. I feel both disabled and privileged to be autistic.
A look into my world: Playlists that i work to
An excerpt from the playlist that this was created to:
1.Everything Matters - AURORA, Pomme
2.Enfantillages pittoresques: II. Berceuse - Erik Satie, Cristina Ariagno
3.Le singe bleu - Vangelis
4.Blue - Ola Gjeilo
5.Dreams - AURORA