I come from a very creative background. I was always drawing ( mainly horses because I really, really wanted one when I was young) I can still remember my excitement when Mum let me paint some grass on her oil painting ..Something I suppose, about the permanence of it –a real painting, to hang on a wall! Art was something that even then I knew would be an essential part of my life.

I went to Art School straight from High School, completely unprepared, as you are in your teens, not knowing what I was about, or the world, or really anything! I picked up some good stuff, some not so good, and pretty much just chugged through it. What I did pick up was a way of thinking about art, along with some technical skills, a good base from which to build my own ideas around. My life very much feeds into my art as my art feeds into my life. Making art can be a solitary activity and for me, the interaction with people is essential for a healthy balance. I find people fascinating, the way people think, and all the different ways to live a life. Being a parent has been one of the biggest growth experiences of my life, leading me to question a lot of my beliefs and has led to a greater understanding of myself.

The how and why of my art-making is very much part of my life and inseparable from my personal growth and understanding of life. My art is more about the inner landscape of the mind and imagination. I was always drawn to fairy tales when I was young and loved imagining the pictures to go with them. I am still drawn to stories, and my paintings are stories of a kind, using the language of art, colour, line and form instead of words. I suppose they’re fairy tales for grown-ups, sometimes serious, sometimes sheer fun, and sometimes make no sense at all. Often the stories are half-formed, shadowy hints of a feeling or moment.

A successful artwork to me, is a work in which the viewer catches a glimpse of something beyond words, some recognition of an emotion or idea or a memory. I love the physical act of painting, creating something new. I’ve spent a lot of time with watercolour, acrylic, pastels, pencil and mixed media and am currently working with water mixable oil which I’m really enjoying. It’s got almost the richness I love with oil, but no fumes and easy clean-up. I love the medium and the colour, it’s a wonderful feeling layering a sunset orange over a vivid turquoise blue, stepping back and seeing it jump out at you, or pulling a shape out of a deep purple background.