Ginger Cat Painting

Born in Scotland, I currently live and create in Dubai. Having originally studied and graduated with a degree in Illustration and printmaking from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland, I then followed a number of different paths and employments both creative and non-creative in focus before recently rediscovering my artistic voice when I began painting again in earnest last year. It has been a revelation to me how my work this time round has manifested in the way it has, arriving seemingly out of nowhere in a more fully formed way after a few years of intermittent bursts of creativity and rather more dormant spells. This time round, I am much more aware of how my different interests and core traits are apparent in my work, are indeed at the heart of my work. A lifelong interest in seeking to understand myself and others better, an enduring fascination with trying to better understand what makes us all tick, led me to retrain in counselling for a period of my life and now shows itself in a level of observation and insight both in what I am drawn towards painting and in how I paint it, particularly in portraits of people and animals. In this most recent body of work I have been guided by an intuitive approach, allowing myself to simply follow what captures my attention and interest – the moments of stillness, peace, calm, the beauty in the vulnerability of the unguarded moment and of the warmth of quiet connection. My painting style is equally instinctive, and this surfaces as a contemplative process of gradually building up thin almost scrubby layers of paint with the desire to capture a quality of light, to evoke feeling, that subtle sense of dreaminess almost verging on nostalgia.