Artist's Statement and Method of Working:
I remember happily using oil pastels as a child (they were better than those insipid wax crayons that were then marketed as suitable for children). There is a physicality about them, you can build up a proper layer of quite intense colour, and the whites can be used for covering and correcting too.
Over the years when I thought I wanted to be a painter I tried various paint techniques, but realised eventually that it wasn’t for me really. Collage and printing using stencils were the intermediate step towards sculpture which turned out to be my ‘language’.
Many ideas for my sculptures stem from visual observations of compositions in paintings-not specific ones, but dipping into the art archive in my mind from years of wondering around museums and art galleries.
I have carried on making two dimensional work as well as sculpture. Collage has always been part of my work but I was dissatisfied with the lack of textural interest and decided to start pushing the work further with the addition of pastel marks. These grew into a much richer texture and now the collage takes a role only as the base onto which to build the picture.
And recently I have started to have ideas and tentative experiments of using pastels and pencil marks on three dimensional works. It might work...
My pastel on collage compositions are built up through stages after the initial arrangement of the elements where the shape and the subject matter begins to emerge. I may cut up the image again and rearrange things until the design appears to gel .Then I go over with a pencil and find the main directions and blocks that direct the eye, and on top of that comes the colour and texture applied with soft oil pastels. More drawing follows and yet more pastel application, sometimes to block in something that looks too busy, or unify an area with close colour combinations, modifying the flow and rhythm of the composition.
The subject matter of still life endures in my work fed by looking at paintings and sculptures from antiquity to the present day where the domestic and the everyday things appear in various arrangements, not forgetting the observations of my own home paraphernalia and clutter.
I aim to find the visual interest there and attempt to assemble a visually coherent image.
Biographical Details:
Born in Helsinki from where I came to London to study art in the seventies
BA Hons Sculpture from St Martin’s school of Art in 1979
Teaching art at a primary school for three years to 1983
Running Visual Literacy workshops on a Media Arts programme at Royal Holloway College LU for three years to 1999
Free lance model maker and assistant to Sir Anthony Caro from 1981 to 2012
Exhibiting work up and down the country from 1988
Society Memberships
The Pastel Society
Scholarships, Awards, Prizes
The Pastel Society Catalogue Award First Prize 2015
The Frank Herring Award : The Pastel Society 2014
Exhibitions:
2015-2016 group shows: Pastel Society Open, Discerning Eye, Society of Women Artists Open,Charlie Smith Anthology, Royal West Academy Bristol Open
2014-2015 group shows: Pastel Society Open, Royal West Academy Bristol, Threadneedle Prize Exhibition Mall Galleries
2013-2014 two artists: Peggy Jay Gallery Burgh House Hampstead
2012-2013 group shows: Open West Exhibition at National Trust’s Newark Park, Threadneedle Prize Exhibition Mall Galleries
2011-2012 group show: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2010-2011 solo show: Artist of the Day Flowers Cork Street, group show; Small is Beautiful Flowers Cork Street
2009-2010 group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Artspace at Barn Galleries, Ludlow Summer Show, three artists: Kingsgate Gallery
2008-2009 group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Ludlow Summer Show
2007-2008 two artists: Koukan gallery London N10, group shows: Battersea Art Fair, Artspace at Barn Galleries
2006-07 group shows: Langham Fine Arts Annual show at Bury St Edmunds, Discerning Eye at Mall Galleries London,
Battersea Arts Fair and Henley Artspace at Barn Galleries
2005-06 four artists: Kingsgate Gallery London NW6,
Group shows: Battersea Arts Fair, Henley Artspace at Barn Galleries
and Henley Festival
2004-05 group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Chelsea Arts Fair,
Artspace at Barn Galleries, 2step Arts: Hoxton Hall project Hackney
2003-04 group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Battersea Arts Fair, Henley Festival , Artspace at Navestock Essex,
2002-03 group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Chelsea Arts Fair, Artspace at Barn Galleries,
2001-02 two artists: National Trust Sutton House Hackney, 2step Arts: Candid Gallery Project London N1
2000-01 group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Worcester Artspace with Barn galleries, Ruth Gorman Arts London NW3
1999-2000 group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Covent Garden Festival with Heifer gallery, East West Gallery Christmas Exhibition London W11
1998-99 solo: Barbican Arts Centre Library and New End Gallery London NW3 , two artists: Heifer Gallery London N5
Group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
1997-98 solo: Burgh House Hampstead London NW3
group shows: Blackheath Gallery Spring Show London SE3 ,Business Design Centre Art Fair
1980-1997 Exhibitions in this period include:
Group shows with Centaur Gallery London N6 , Blackheath Gallery ,Woodlands Art Gallery London SE3 ,Beatrice Royal Gallery Eastleigh ,Piano Nobile Gallery Richmond upon Thames, Brighton Arts Index , Clode Gallery Bridgenorth
Solo at Lauderdale House London.
Private Collections:
Uppark House National Trust
Arnos Vale Cemetery Restoration Project
Leicestershire Education Department
