Nocturnal Paradise Painting

This new series of paintings and works on paper represents a refinement in the practice of Victoria Young Jamieson as she manipulates colour and materials to describe her abstracted memories of the land, sea and sky. A new freedom within the works comes from an interest in colour theory and intuitive mark-making concepts - inspired by the masters of Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field Painting (with a particular nod to Georgia Okeefe, Max Ernst and Jules Olitski). Closer to home, Patrick Heron and Peter Lanyon of the St Ives School are also an important influence, respected by Young Jamieson for their bold use of layered colour and paired-back, abstract form. Young Jamieson’s paintings are created using multiple layers of loose brushstrokes - sometimes expanding across the whole picture plane - sometimes confined within perfectly rendered circles on smooth, dark backgrounds. This juxtaposition highlights the artists’ considered choice of palette and materials, as she allows the multi-dimensional painting surface to shift, depending on the time of day, light, setting and position of the viewer. Young Jamieson’s mark-laden canvases and smaller paper works echo the dark, swirling forms and rich, inky depths of the rock formations and rugged cliffs which surround her in Dorset, but they are memories rather than direct observations. In this series, there is a feeling of twilight and night-fall, a curious time when shapes morph into something new, revealing something beautiful and abstract. As such, these paintings are not about a particular place, idea or experience, instead they are a pivotal moment in the work of Young Jamieson as she moves towards a more intuitive way of seeing, and making.