ABOUT ME - a Cornish artist
MY ART PRACTICE
As a Cornish artist, my passion is to create paintings suffused with the atmosphere, light and weather of the North Cornish coast which comes from my heritage.
My life is a constant process of seeing, recording to memory or paper, ideas and thoughts to be painted or to inform on new pieces of artwork. Reading lots of material and researching other artists helps to enrich my practice.
No two paintings will ever be the same. I like to make a painting that I don’t know. It keeps the process fluid, responsive and exciting. Sometimes it can have a starting point of an image or often it is just the sweep of the brush with ink or the charcoal marks that bring something from my memory to the fore.
Intuition and letting the paint find a way are all part of the process. After layering loose watery areas of colour over
The paintings process might include sanding, wiping off and glazing further layers of light, followed by more impasto brush marks.
The coast of Cornwall takes the full force of Atlantic storms and weather which has shaped our coastline over the centuries. As a Cornish artist, it feels right to use these same movements, building up layers of history and light on the canvas.
COLLABORATION
Working so close with nature, I am a keen guardian of our beaches and supporter of the #2minute beach clean movement and other community projects that have started here in Bude.
For five years I have been a part of the #cruelandcurious art collective in conjunction with the National Trust. ‘ And a North Cornwall collective called Ingenious Pursuits‘ which is a group of likeminded people with quality at it’s heart combined with ethical values.
FAMILY
I live with my husband near the beach and have recently become a Nanna. Our two sons live and work here too. Tom is head distiller at The Cornish Distilling Co making rum just outside of Bude and Harry carries on a cornish tradition of Dry Stone Walling.
BUDE
Bude has always been my home and I am very proud of my Cornish heritage. Supporting local projects and encouraging art in the community has alwasy been close to my heart. There is a lot to celebrate in the people, community and it’s future. As such a people person, it is an irony that there are no people in my paintings. I prefer my paintings to have a solitude and timeless nature, but like nothing better than to share stories and connect people on projects or new ideas that benefit our community.
As you come into Bude you might notice the roundabout with the large rusted structures. Completed with a friend and help from local people, if you’d like to read more, the story of this is here .
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