"There's a Scenario Here We Didn't Expect" Painting

I am a largely self-taught abstract expressionist artist based in Margate, UK. I have always been attracted to spontaneity and improvisation in art forms and have felt a strong need to create abstract art that feels ‘free’ and made ‘in the moment’. My paintings are therefore unplanned, evolving out of the colours, textures, marks and moods that emerge throughout the process and whatever emotions or thoughts I am carrying with me at the time. Working mainly in acrylics but with a mixed media approach, I am aiming for the painting equivalent of a jazz jam, prioritising spontaneity, authenticity and freedom in mark-making over achieving a polished composition/choreographed act. In this sense, I am most proud of my work when it retains a raw and open-ended, unfinished quality that embraces uncertainty, imperfections and the energy of the process. Inspired by the rhythmic, gestural, physical act of painting -when it feels like my hand is freestyle dancing- I will also often paint to music, bringing its energy, syncopation and movement into my work. Painting feels like an enquiry, a dialogue with the unknown. I enjoy being surprised by what happens in front of me and see each piece as a unique event. Recognisable ‘forms’ such as figures or landscapes may or may not emerge and it is this sense of the unexpected that I find so compelling.