I am an Impressionistic artist who focuses on the atmosphere in a scene and I feel driven to express myself through light. How it falls on a scene, what emotion that evokes. My creative process is sensual and very personal. I feel compelled to be fully engaged in the process. It is never enough to just record what I see. I need to feel the canvas and the oils on my fingertips. I need to breath in the heady smells. I love the sound of that connection between the canvas and I. It becomes a real, living experience. It sounds strange to explain. And of course, visually its stimulating to see a thing come alive under you. I use my fingertips as a paint brush and as a personal marker on each canvas, sometimes touching a canvas hundreds or even thousands of times before a work is completed. I often forget to sign my work because my personal stamp is already all over it. Its obviously mine.
The feminine desires are celebrated in my work. Though emancipated from the restrictions of the outdated role of being a women, we still find joy in our homes and traditions, and this joy is timeless. The joy we derive keep many of us enslaved in mundane activities in and around our homes. This strange joy will be celebrated in my work. I guess I'm making a statement on some level. Yes, yes... well done womans lib thank you, but I'm still stuck in my role. On some level its instinctual I guess. Nesting instinct?
Where do you get your inspiration?
I feel compelled to record the atmosphere created by the light coming through. It marks a scene in its own particular way and an emotion is evoked. When I consider that a light source billions of miles away can filter through the ozone, beam through the clouds, come through my little window and effect how I FEEL about an arrangement? THAT'S my inspiration. I feel that connection to the source of light, I want to record how that light specifically effects my little life at that exact point in time.
How do you deal with artist's block
I recently experienced this for the first time. I had an emotional loss of epic proportions, very hard to define. Extreme. The resulting mourning period stole all my desires to create. I overcame this black period by filling my soul with art. I decided to fill the void with all the beauty and healing that art has to offer. Each beautiful Monet, van Gogh, Degas, Cezanne I gazed over was a building block, setting up an imaginary bridge over the dark, back to the light of creativity. My first attempt to create something was as basic as scratching a pencil over a stencil. Thats how low my creative ebb and flow was. My first oil painting after this dark period of mourning was a robust Nelson Mandela Strelitzia, standing firmly planted in its natural environment on South African soil with a dreamlike quality to the night sky behind it. I felt like I was saying, I'm home. As If I had been lost and wandering about the earth without that freedom to create.
I know my artwork is finished when...
When I can literally not touch it once more with a fingerprint, a pallet knife or a paint brush. And because I NEVER feel that exact point in the creativity process, my work is never completed. Its literally finished when its sold and carried away with wet paint patches and me running after it to "just do one more thing." Being a bit of a perfectionist is hard when your creative outlet is impressionistic. But I would freak out if I was attempting to be a camera, so really, being an impressionist is a saftey measure for my sanity.
Most looking forward to this exhibition because...
I am most looking forward to this exhibition because it is my first international exhibition and the third in my fledgling art career. Im generally terrified of crowds and prefer to be invisible so this amazing opportunity also gives me a chance to face my fears and insecurities. And what an amazing opportunity to be able to be here as an artist at the Oxford International Art Fair! Its really a dream I never even dared to contemplate. I was forced into the first two exhibitions. To be here at this level is such a motivation to allow art to fully take over my life. It has given me a license to do what makes me happiest in this world and that is to record it in my own special hands-on way.
