3 Harbours Arts Festival Re-launch Event

I am exhibiting at the 3 Harbours Arts Festival Re-launch event. Showcasing local-artists, makers, musicians and writers, the re-launch event is a taster of what will happen in the summer of 2025 when the full festival takes place. Spot the Marquee in Port Seton Harbour and follow the sounds of bag-pipes, opera, the fiddle and other assorted music makers! A festival of the community and for the community and I am very pleased to be taking part. The event takes place on the 21 Sept 2024 from 11am to 5pm. Sunshine and seaside with a little bit of art and music. Enjoy!
Based in Cockenzie, East Lothian, my paintings are emotional, expressive and dynamic using an abstract visual language which has developed over time through my art practice. I paint seascapes, landscapes, figures and still lifes ranging from the semi-abstract to fully abstract. I like a lot of quiet time to think and this gives me space for the subject to emerge, grow and develop. I look at what stimulates me and personalise it, drawing on life experiences and an inner world that is rich with memories, associations, beliefs and notions. When I create, I draw on an internal place of imagination and life experience or soul. Together with ‘soul’, I use my toolbox of colour, shape, texture and line gathered from the East Lothian coastline. Even though the work is abstract, it is important to me that the work is grounded in reality so that the colours, lines, shapes and textures are reflective of what I am observing and depicting.

I work in mixed media – oils, acrylic, collage, charcoal, oil pastels, pencil, ink. My printmaking training has influenced the way I apply paint with elements of mono-printing, stencilling and engraved lines incorporated into the layers I put down. My works are on stretched canvas, wooden panels or paper. I might walk and sketch and then build on the compositions in the studio. Other times, I look back through sketchbooks or start by making marks and putting down layers and the images emerge. I build layers, tearing, cutting, splashing, laying down paint and scraping it back. I put down and I take away and the work goes through many stages. Periods of intense manipulation are balanced with moments of quiet reflection when I edit and refine. I am constantly adjusting the many aspects such as texture, composition, line and marks to achieve the right balance and to make work with a sense of presence, narrative, intimacy and strength.