Heliocopis Painting

Elizabeth Vicary's subject matter as an artist is the natural world - animals, birds and butterflies. But her work is also about fragility, about the fact that so many species are now extinct or threatened with extinction. She is a figurative painter, looking at animal and insect forms and taking her observations as the starting point for paintings that suggest a parallel world. Her aim is to depict another reality, something slightly removed or altered. A colour may be heightened to give greater emphasis or a butterfly's wings exaggerated or extended to emphasis their unique character. Elizabeth Vicary never sets out to be topographically accurate in her work. Instead she evokes the spirit of her subject through apparently random brush marks and colour combinations. We feel as if we could be looking at a trace that evokes the fragility of nature, reminding us of how a species can disappear.