Meet your tutor!
Meet your tutor!
I'm an abstract landscape painter who uses natural materials to tell a story of the land.
The ancient sites and abandoned industry relics that litter the Cornish landscape offer both inspiration and natural materials from which I create my abstract landscape paintings. I’m interested in the visual impact of what has been left behind, what is hidden, what will erode and what will remain indefinitely. Gathering earth pigments from chosen sites, I hand process paints to bring you a tangible connection to the place, telling a story and bringing the magic of this land to you.
After completing 2 years of study with the Newlyn Art School, which strengthened my sense of self, ideas and interests and gave me the tools to be rigorous in my critical thinking, I started to make huge leaps forward in my professional career.
A significant part of this was my move to investigate natural materials in an effort to reduce the use of plastic-based products and create a more considered and sustainable art practice.
In spring 2023 I held her first solo show 'This Land' at the Royal Cornwall Museum which debuted my explorations into natural earth pigments and writing about my beloved Cornwall landscape. Alongside this I ran a series of workshops and discovered a love for teaching my processes.
My process begins with an experience of the land – a ritual of observing, connecting and gathering. What is under my feet becomes my palette as the natural pigments allow me to form a tangible connection with the site.
Drawn to these landscapes, scattered with the remnants of lost communities and a memory of what was, I immerse myself in the moment of being - walking, contemplating the history of this land, wondering of its future.
The ruins of industry being reclaimed by nature create a beautiful tension in this place.
Man v Nature.
Our fleeting time here seems so insignificant yet is so damaging. We build, we take, we abandon.
And the ancient ritualistic sites still standing long after their domestic counterparts have fallen, some preserved and protected but others left to fend for themselves, they still hold a magical appeal to many who are drawn here to try to understand our ancestral wisdom.
As I walk, I feel myself disengage from busy-ness and focus on being present. I seek out high and low places to explore viewpoints and gain a sense of the topography and scale.
I capture these experiences and views with rapid sketches, filtering what is most important in that fleeting moment of time on this ancient landscape. Using limited materials and working at speed captures the essence and creates and energy to be drawn on later.
In the studio I draw on the visual and experiential memory to develop the work, using predominantly natural materials with the occasional addition of synthetic, enjoying the tension of human-made alongside nature and how this mimics the locations from which I draw inspiration. I pour natural inks and paints, enjoying the fluidity and physicality of the process, unpredictable but to some degree controllable.
Inspired by the multi-viewpoint approach explored by Peter Lanyon, the energy and freedom of the abstract expressionists, and the great Sublime, I combine observation and experience with aerial, cross-sectional and imagined views to abstract the landscape whilst provoking a sense of the familiar.
Using natural earth pigments and hand processing them creates an opening into the painting and an antidote to the desire for instant gratification. My process reconnects me to much forgotten knowledge of working with the land, a symbiotic relationship with natural resources, respectful and harmonious. Taking only what I need and offering up a token of thanks to the ground for sharing her rich bounty.
In conversation with Jesse Leroy Smith at the Newlyn School of Art Mentoring show, Tremenheere Gallery 2022
Career Highlights
Solo exhibition at Royal Cornwall Museum with delivery of community workshops during the show.
Artist in Residence at Watergate Bay Hotel.
Tutor at St Ives School of Painting.
Cultivator Creative & Cultural Leadership Development Programme participant.
Artwork in collections at Lisarb Energy, Watergate Bay Hotel and private collectors.
