A collaboration

with jeweller Katherine Bree

Pyramid Gallery, York.

November 2022.

Photo credit: Lucy Saggers. 'Where the Owls Roost' painting.

What a strange long hot summer this has been. So many things have contrived to take me away from the studio this year and I have decided to take a step back from the pressures of exhibitions, to look deeply at what my work is about and where I want to take it. What began as a process that made me sad and worried has ended up being rejuvenating. I realised that constantly working under pressure to meet deadlines and to sell was making my work rigid.

I have had a fallow year. It seems fitting for a painter in love with landscape to be likened to a field. Wikipedia says ‘the goal of Fallow land is to allow the land to recover and store organic matter.’ This is what I have been doing. The visions are in my head, ready to flow.

with Katherine Bree discussing stones for necklaces inspired by 'Magic Garden' painting.

My next exhibition is at the end of the year in November at Pyramid Gallery in York. This is a collaborative exhibition with jeweller Katherine Bree who I have talked about in my last blog. For me it is a tying together of the very best of my earlier work and also an invitation to invite the new work into being. The exhibition coincides with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain which marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It is said of this time that the veil between the spirit world and corporeal has loosened, allowing the dead to mingle with the living. It is also the Celtic New Years Eve. What a perfect time for an exhibition about the elementals of Pigment and Stone and how the mysterious force of creativity can double in force and interest when blended together. This is an exhibition about taking stock, mingling with the past and inviting the new. I look forward to seeing you there.