Etsy

I have been painting and collaging since I was a child. I studied surface pattern design at Staffordshire University in the late eighties (showing my age now) and following that I was first a maker (mostly papier mache) and then a home textile and giftware designer. Then for the last six years or so I’ve been concentrating on mixed media paintings - mostly contemporary landscapes and narratives with photographic elements.

Although inspired by all sorts of places a great deal of my inspiration comes from my own locality. I live in the hills above Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire –Those who have not visited the area may still be aware through literature of its reputation as a landscape which has inspired many artists and writers such as the Brontes who lived just a few miles away at Haworth and Ted Hughes who was brought up here. It is a landscape which can be beautiful and romantic yet sometimes harsh and foreboding.

Although there is much here still to remind us of the past the landscape none the less continues to change. I am interested in portraying a landscape of our time as well as the timeless qualities of nature. I like to include a human narrative in my work through depiction of roads, factories, street furniture, vehicles and machinery. I am captivated by the contrasting relationship between the vastness of nature in all the drama of light and weather alongside the transient impact of mankind on the structure and detail of the land.

I like to use pattern in my work still, in the form of collage and I also use fragments of my own photos made into transfers which I apply over the paint My daughters Evie(10) and Isabel(6) have caught the creative bug from me so we often sit and collage together - thankfully they also tell me when I need to stop and take time out!