It’s all about the difference between the direct and indirect. With painting a mark or brushstroke is direct, which can be scary and intimidating, we can hesitate.

Whilst my outcomes have changed over the years my approach of starting with an intention has always been an important part of my practice. I have explored working without intention or a theme, but found the work lacking in meaning.

We are informed by what we have done, our knowledge builds with experience, ways of working become hard wired neurologically. Intuition is not innate, it is learned behaviour.

I have been creating art for as long as I can remember. Over the course of my adult life I have explored endless processes and media. I am aware that I have a tendency to reach for the next shiny thing, like a magpie!

Since last December fellow artist Karen Stamper and I have been engaged in a collaboration and I thought it was about time I wrote a blog about it.

Like many artists whilst my final outcomes are abstract, they are firmly based in reality; from observational drawing, tracings, photography, rubbings and gathering up of items I find on my journey.

DEFINITION; A critical friend can be defined as a trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critiques of a person’s work as a friend.

In many ways this is a return to ideas that surface regularly within my work; the abandoned, a desire for the insignificant given status…. a reoccurring theme.

Mark making has become increasingly important to my work. It is one aspect of drawing but by definition is less observational and more intuitive.