“It is a strange awakening to find the sky inside you and beneath you and above you and all around you so that your spirit is one with the sky, and all is positive night”
Thomas Merton - The Sign of Jonas
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Painter, poet, dreamer, dormant meteorologist, light-catcher, shadow finder and Lover of Clouds…
Ever since I can remember I have loved the sky. Lying on the grass in our garden, I used to watch the clouds for hours and in those early days decided aged 9 my vocation would be to become a meteorologist. I never followed that path though I remember the pull of the sky on my imagination even then. Instead of studying atmospheric physics and weather data I sought to capture the sky’s theatre in paint - creating a visual poetry of her myriad dances and moods - a dense accumulation of looking and remembering.
Scotland and East Anglia are the places I linger longest, observing her sweeping veil, stretching in exuberant abandon. One day, pale and languid, serene gentle skies; another day her mood changes to a wild and windswept plethora of gales and dark moody clouds. Conversations between darkness and light upon the landscape - the sky has and always will remain a constant source of imagination. A life’s looking and thinking is held onto the paintings created back in the studio. Here I begin to explore the luminous space between landscape and memory, where light and shadows interweave through layers of sea, shore and sky - the delicate layering of light as it scatters and seeps, shifts and weaves through both dense and fragile landscapes.
Once back in the studio, my practice involves working with traditional methods of egg tempera and oils, the paintings taking shape in a slow progression over weeks and months - meditative spaces between nature and the inner landscapes of memory and contemplation.
