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I would say that I am a self-taught oil painter, although I do have a background in art, that was in print making and a lot of years before I picked up the paint brush and began painting in oils.

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I often think that I have approached my life in a backwards fashion, not intentionally, it just happened. Art, creating and generally making stuff, was the only thing I was ever any good at and so from a young age it was always my ambition, (and my fathers also) to make a living out of something that brought me pleasure and happiness.

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So, I began a degree in print making, in a time when there was such a thing as polytechnic and mobile phones were a thing of the future. Two years into the degree I became pregnant and so left the course to raise my daughter, the choice not to return and finish the degree was wholly mine.  Two more children came along and a lot of years later, I began to paint. And this was the moment that my Art career began, at the age of 54.

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The children no longer needed me and began one by one to leave the family home, that burden was released. After such a long break, I had a lot to catch up on, but I was totally and utterly absorbed in oil painting, spending every spare moment practicing, reading, watching, just absorbing myself in my new found passion.  At that point I had a job in graphics, I managed a small team, it was very stressful but the painting helped. In 2019 I dropped my hours to work part time, to spend more time pursuing my ambition to be a full-time working artist and in 2020 that’s exactly what I did.

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Then we all know what happened next? A global pandemic around the corner, and my world domination in the Art world ground to a halt, well apart from my appearance on Landscape Artist of the year in 2021, which was filmed in 2020.

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My work began with painting figures, I think it was the fact that painting a person is extremely difficult that drew me to doing it, I do love a challenge. But after my appearance on your show, I began to explore landscape work, and realized that that was also challenging, not in the same way as a figure, its more complex. A landscape, I feel holds a lot of instant emotion to the viewer, they can connect or disconnect in the blink of an eye. Dismissing what doesn’t resonate or be totally captivated, it’s a gut connection.

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I am still on a long journey to discover what my actual style of painting is, I love to work very loose but also enjoy carrying it through to a highly rendered state, as I appreciate all ways of painting, its hard to choose one to actually stick to. Since my last appearance on your show, I have developed my way of working a lot, and my knowledge of oil paint and its application has improved dramatically.

I am and always have been a very emotive painter, and hopefully its that, that makes my work stand out from others

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