Mary, After Raphael Drawing

The work begins as a thought or a feeling. It gathers resonance as it merges with something I might have seen, a childhood memory, a past experience, a dream, a nightmare, or a day-dream. The initial thought is a response to any of these things, but is usually about the human condition somehow, especially our internal emotional lives. The process then moves to a very physical phase. It becomes about the material of the paint and its application. It’s about the canvas surface and how to convey the thought in a very tangible way. My concerns are about surface, colour and spacial relationships but not in an over formal way. Oftentimes, it aids the initial thought and at other times it kind of disrupts it. Most of the time it ends up being about creating something in the space between or around the objects, creatures or bodies I am painting. In recent years drawing and painting has become an increasingly inner process for me. l use traditional methods and materials that slow the process down, so the subject has time to develop, shift and finally take on a life of its own.