Wild Primrose Print

Apparently, I was unusually fascinated by plants and nature even before I could walk. Alongside that fascination it soon became clear that drawing and painting were set to be lifelong passions as well. After graduating from the University for Creative Arts in 1991, I was a full-time artist for a time but without as yet really finding my voice as an artist. It would not be until very recently – during the pandemic in fact – that I finally settled on something I really wanted to paint about. That happened when I brought the two passions together: nature and painting. The result has been ‘floritanicals’ These draw inspiration from impressionist florals, which typically are of flowers in a vase or from a distance within a landscape, and the botanical art tradition which aims for a scientifically penetrating visual analysis of a plant and its reproductive organs. I have found work from both traditions truly breath-taking. Once I’ve finished my series of meadow flowers I want to get in closer and do some paintings of everyday English weeds. Ever since I painted a pair of my mother’s orchids I could see how the truth about the triffid-like appendages and voracious mouth-like parts of flowers is stranger than fiction. I’m looking forward to what I will discover within the flowering heads of familiar weeds. I see nature not as an inert and dead thing, awaiting human exploitation, but as enchanted and alive with a divine life. By adapting elements from the work of the impressionists I have found ways to express the aliveness of plants. Most paintings of mine are a riot of colour and a celebration of form but also a celebration of the gelatinous qualities of the paint itself. These all, I hope, create an impression of life, sure to lift any room.