The presence of landscape and being in it is the source to my work and these works in particular relate to the ocean. I have always had a strong connection to the sea. These paintings are about breathing, about what we yearn for, and the space created when being caught off guard by something which takes us away from our physical reality for a moment; a meditation, a portal. They are also about beauty and time.

I think of these painting as having a timeless quality, of evoking something of the eternal, works that you can just ‘be’ with, perhaps meditate with, become. The larger panel paintings have titles of their own which come from the text Notebooks Of Eurydice, written by late Persian painter Partou Zia, who I met when I lived in Cornwall, and this text has been a companion in the studio. Each time I read it, I glimpse of something different. So on a couple of walls in the exhibition I have included extracts from the text. I wanted to share her poetry, her profound insight and intellect, and beauty. In my solo exhibition Silence - The Messenger And The Metaphor, I’ve presented fragments of the text almost in a way of concrete poetry.

Using colour and it’s inherent instability, how it changes according to what it is next to, I look to create a shimmer, a vibration through using close tones and by using the support as light source as well as colour experience. The colours used all come from botanical sources, I either forage or grow the colour in my studio garden. Always looking to develop my creative practice more sustainably, in using these colours, I want to bring us closer to the colour readily available around us and thus consider the immense value of our wild places and the wider issues of plastic pollution and climate change.

I am intrigued by the idea that opposites are always present, am interested in differences of rhythm, tempo and repetition, and how they produce irregularity in marks and layers. All of these contradict the inherent flatness of paintings and this is where I seek to explore the possibilities and impossibilities of expressing these liminal moments in paint.

All of the pigments in this exhibition use botanical colour to make inks, paints and dyes.

Portal series

These first six panels 161 x 150cm and 122 x 122cm, are included in my solo exhibition at Elysium Gallery in Swansea, Wales 20th May - 1st July 2023.

A Moment Can Reveal The Whole Of Eternity 2022

Oak gall ink + traditional gesso on panel

160 x 151cm

Nights Bring Gifts Bound In Colour-Shape-Sounds 2022

Oak gall ink + traditional gesso on panel

160 x 151cm

Mysteries Unfold Outside Of Time II 2022

Oak gall ink + traditional gesso on panel

160 x 151cm

Prosodic Chapters Of Immanent Silence 2022

Botanical colour on gesso on birch ply panel

122 x 122cm

Shadows Are Silence Sung In Chorus 2022

Oak gall ink + traditional gesso on panel

160 x 151cm

The Humility To Forget One's Name 2022

Oak gall ink + traditional gesso on panel

160 x 151cm

Mysteries Unfold Outside Of Time I 2022

Botanical colour on gesso on birch ply panel

122 x 122cm

Go to work on paper

or EXHIBITION VIDEO TOUR also see EXHIBITION INSTALLATION PAGE

My story behind using plants to create colour.

For a number of years, I lived in an ancient eighty-acre Welsh oak woodland, off-grid. I was utterly immersed in the experience of being in the woodland. Searching for ways to make my creative practice more sustainable, I wanted to make work ‘of the woodland’. It was here that I discovered that ink could be made using oak galls and started to explore the possibilities of this very luxurious and sensual material – nick-named ink of Kings, Poets and Monks. Exploring the process and chemistry of ink making, I thereby developed my own techniques of making and using it. It is a very exciting alchemical feeling process.

This journey using oak gall ink started in 2011. In 2020, I broadened my palette by foraging (sustainably) for other plant colours; colours used in natural dyes. I also created a colour garden with a large bed for specifically growing plants from which to extract colour.