November 2024

I have some works in the latest Barnes Art Fair - biggest one yet.

These recent works were about remembering my mother. She was most at home in the landscape of the Antrim Coast and painted it all the time. I want to sit where she sat and try and feel how she felt. It’s my way of honouring her. And yet I don’t want to copy her. I think I feel more liberated than she did. I want to try to express more than she felt able to. I want to feel allowed to rage, to break convention, to not do polite watercolours, to find drama and contrast and ugliness and beauty. It’s why I want to experiment with watercolour (her medium) and acrylic but put it up against something quite different: opaque ink, wax crayon, oil. Break some rules about what should be put with what. I love oil painting but I want to try something new and working on paper with water based material is letting me try different things.