Chroma series
After what felt like a long time painting mostly calm, monochrome paintings I had a yearning to get back to colour and some vibrancy. I’ve found over time that I’m often drawn more towards colour during summer - it must be something to do with the light and what’s going on in the garden. This series of paintings started their life as summer began, initially with a couple of small paintings for a Christmas exhibition, and it continued from there.
Over the last few months I've been experimenting. It started with the chance to try something new for the Muse Affordable Art Show before Christmas - a lovely opportunity to step outside of my current work and ‘play’. I created two very minimal paintings - and despite how it might appear, I find that minimal does NOT mean quicker or easier! There is less room for getting things a little wrong, in my opinion. The perfectionist in me can’t tolerate something that looks just a little ‘off’ when you go very minimal, so getting the final result just right is surprisingly time consuming.
I love minimalism and find it strangely calming to be around, probably because it contrasts with my own personal untidiness! But for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I find it incredibly hard to achieve real minimalism in my work, I keep wanting to add more complexity . . . . I like a challenge, so I’ve been playing more with minimalism lately.
The resulting new series paintings are a progression of my previous work, rather than a complete change. An evolution - I think that’s a good way to describe it. I enjoy constantly evolving my work, it gives me satisfaction and challenge at the same time, and helps me stay passionate about what I'm doing. . . . because we all need a bit more passion in our lives!
A number of these will be part of a group exhibition in Nelson, at Quiet Dog Gallery. “What you see is what you see” opens on April 19th 2024.
I’ve taken the gradients and stripes that had appeared in my work over the last couple of years (examples below) and developed them further. The stripes have come from shadows on the deck outside where I paint, I see them almost every day, and they’ve sneaked into my work. I like how your ‘life’ becomes a part of your work - everyones life experiences are different, and that creates very different inspiration and creative output.
Details of previous paintings and inspiration reference photos
I’ve found the gradients to be an enjoyable challenge. On the one hand I don’t want them to be as perfect as if they were spray painted or printed, but on the other hand I seem to need a good degree of ‘nearly-perfection’. They are all painted with a brush. On multiple occasions I have thought I’ve got a gradient area completed satisfactorily, but then when I live with the painting for a week I realise it’s still not good enough and needs refining. It’s been a very satisfying challenge to learn the skills to make the process easier.
I usually live with a painting (on my wall or on an easel in the living room) for a couple of weeks before I can declare it truly finished. Far too often I decide it’s not finished yet - it’s frustrating, but the satisfaction when I finally call a painting complete is great! . . . . and I can now call these ones finished - hooray!
Click on the painting titles below to read more about each painting and see prices, dimensions, and more detailed images.
