About Me

Background

Many moons ago I did a printmaking Degree at Leeds Polytechnic, I then got married and had children and my career in Art took a back seat, for many many years, 20 in fact.

I did menial jobs before becoming a 3D Graphic illustrator for a Playground company and although very restrictive, I was able to use a little of my creative skills to enjoy the role. While there I gained a Degree with honors in Landscape Architecture.

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It was at that time that my Children had all grown up and I started to paint again, and the first painting I did was a portrait in oil paints of my Dad. I was hooked instantly.  I worked between portraits and landscapes and tried to take in as much information about oil painting techniques as I was an absolute beginner, I read, I listened and I watched as well as painting constantly.

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Work today

My subject matter now is a little more refined and I am drawn more too figurative Art. I learnt early on that painting a portrait is a lot more difficult to painting a landscape and this was what drove me to keep pushing myself, to be more accurate, to discover new ways to try to capture the human form.

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I have always had a fascination with history and local myths, like the green man.  It interests me that the way people lived before we were here was so very different to ours, their believes, their environment, their rituals and the knowledge they possessed. My work includes a lot of narrative with figures taking center stage.

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A woman’s role in history was totally different to mine today, the way woman have been portrayed in Art through the ages has always been with a male gaze, purely to satisfy a male’s appetite.  I am trying through my work to portray characters as women, not objects just women who lived everyday lives and then died.  To capture their emotional response to things that happened to them through no fault of their own.

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Our knowledge of plants growing in British woodlands and hedgerows is lost, the properties that one plant has could do harm and good. The myths and legends with the powers they hold goes back centuries, I incorporated this into a lot of my work, exploring the connection to the character.