I am not a landscape artist.
These paintings of the South Downs are less about landscape than the moment when winter loosens its grip, light returns and the world feels full of possibility again.
In 1989, a health crisis while studying at Central Saint Martins brought my creative practice to a halt. The hiatus lasted for more than thirty years. Then, in 2022, an iPad offered an unexpected way back, dissolving some of the fear around making and eventually returning me to the physical studio.
This series marks my return to describing light, colour and form through acrylic on 20cm x 20cm boards.
My love of history and archaeology shapes the way I work.
I treat the canvas as a place to explore and build, before scraping and sanding away layers to reveal traces of what has gone before.
The paintings hold that process of disappearance and return: landscapes remembered, obscured and rediscovered; light emerging through accumulated histories.
I don’t know what comes next, but, for the first time in a very long time, I’m no longer afraid to find out.
