Layers 3
Peeling back the layers
I am a long standing lover of peely-paint! Whenever I visit anywhere I seem to take a peely-paint photo! I find the layers visually pleasing but also the sense of time captured in the additional layers, the colour choices, the fading and rusting. Like the wallpapers of an ancient house, there are stories contained with each layer.
Recently I have been peeling back the layers of time, at midlife I find myself pivoting between my past and my future, I find myself not needed in my role as a mother in quite the same way. I find myself stripping back, sending items off to the charity shop to find new homes with others. I have been revisiting old family albums, putting together memory boxes and taking a moment to appreciate what I have. I am sentimental and have stored letters, sketchbooks, diaries for all my life, recording the transitions and set backs, my hopes and aspirations.
New work for Ferrers Gallery (7th Feb - 20th March 2025)
The cleansing effect has carried through to the studio where there’s a more pared back aesthetic developing. The layers of my work are becoming more bold, less textured and less rooted in the reality of the landscape, instead erring towards the abstract. There are still symbols of birds, trees, houses. There are still experiments with pattern and mark. But there is less. It feels like the busyness of the first half of my life is giving way to choosing to simplify, choosing cleaner lines, choosing what pleases my artist soul.
Some of this boldness can be attributed to how my sketchbooks have become more shape based and stronger in mark. Some can be attributes to the quietness of winter and seeking simplicity. Some I think is this mid-life-life-stage.
Despite this post I am trying not to over-think it, not to be overly self-critical and to embrace the joy I get from paint, print and collage.
New work for Ferrers Gallery (7th Feb - 20th March 2025)
Thank you for reading this. I post three free-to-read posts each month and a subscriber post that I publish on the first of every month. It’s a magazine style post where I share, over a three monthly cycle, inspirations, creative wellbeing advice, how to manage creative block and move to creative flow. I share lessons from my online courses in the form of a ‘dose’ of creativity to kickstart your sketchbook practice. Coming in 2025 are interviews with other artists on how they use a sketchbook (launching in February) as well as news from my studio and insights into my creative practice. Join my tribe for £5 a month or £50 a year and get access to all my previous posts too.
