Across the sands to Samarkand Painting

I would like people to find and enjoy mystery in my work, and in the minutiae of life that inspires it. I hope that my paintings will give rise to questions and unlock new adventures in the viewer's own imagination each time they look. Texture, memory and all the senses play their part in the stories each viewer will bring to a painting. Much of my work comes from being outdoors, walking, travelling by bus or by ship or by train, and the restlessness of the sea. Movement and energy are an important part of my work and of my creative process. I respond in colours and strokes to the shapes I encounter in the urban and natural world. The urban jungle encroaches even on my Island home, though I do still sense the exotic and the adventurous. The urban adventurer is on high alert each time she leaves her front door. There are always hazards to navigate, roadworks, rail strikes or floods. We are nervy like cats, wide-eyed and wary, while assuming an air of nonchalant boredom with all that impacts our senses. The world is an exciting and richly exotic place of adventure, both because of what we have made in it and because of what was already there in it. Travel, colour, movement and mystery are always present in my work.