My work has the overall sense of a painting,but as you look closely you will see that it is skilfully built-up using layers of found papers and paint. This is an intuitive, direct approach that allows me a huge amount of freedom to interpret my ‘sketches’ in a bold and original way, to capture the memory of a place and the sense of human presence, echoing the passing of time.
I see the beauty in simple scraps, ripped edges, accidental marks and worn surfaces. By simplifying and flattening space with paper shapes, I can recompose, conceal and reveal, deliberately avoiding representational clarity. The interaction of positive and negative shapes, colours and textures, layers of made and found papers all give a sense of unity.
I take my inspiration from foreign lands, harbours and urban docklands,but this does not dominate. Collage is the idea;it is liberating and leads me in new directions.Increasingly there is a strong abstract element but there are recognisable parts that draw the viewer in and allow them to use their imagination too.
When wandering in my favourite boatyards, like a magpie I collect worn and painted ephemera: offcuts of wood, sticks for stirring paint, paint tin lids and bits of gaudy plastic. I reinvent these fallen throwaways, my small treasures, my misshaped mishaps into new stories. As I construct and deconstruct, more stripped back dynamic compositions reveal themselves. Each piece becomes cheekier and more irreverent; they jut and spill out; flat colour abuts dribbly paint sticks. The marks and edges become the subject; punchier, each kink curve and accidental blemish accentuated and celebrated in its own right and gradually this richness of surface allows me to move into exciting new compositions.
I feel that I am at an exciting new stage of my collage paintings that is rooted in my previous work.
Growing up on the east coast of Yorkshire as a happy beachcomber, I was attracted to the faded painted wood, scraps of gaudy plastic, brightly coloured fishing floats and nets: all sun dried, sand blasted, salted and weathered. My Dad’s passion was sailing, each Friday we would pack up and spend the weekend on the coast. I was free to wander, explore and collect, only returning at mealtimes. This freedom set my path. Old boats, harbours, the sun-salty smell of tarpaulin and diesel, and the sound of halyards tapping on a mast are all comforting childhood memories. They have stayed with me and I still naturally gravitate towards the harbour in any coastal town.
At Art College I was immediately drawn to the dense flat colours of silk screen printing. It was on a college travel scholarship to Paris that I discovered turquoise shutters, red chequered tablecloths and curling iron balconies: shapes and colours so frivolous to me growing up in the worn, tough, solid fishing town of Hull. It was in Paris that I saw Matisse’s cut-outs for the first time; it wasn’t just the scale of his work but the intensity, the pin holes, crease lines and torn edges that fired my imagination to work with collage papers.
From the stepping stone of Paris, I continued travelling to sunnier countries, working in Turkey, Greece, France, India, Morocco, the Caribbean, eventually settling in New Zealand before returning to the UK ten years later. All the while I recorded in my sketchbooks, not just of the scenes before me, but a collection of urban marks, rust stains, peeling paint and local paper ephemera.
Foreign lands, harbours and urban docklands remain my inspiration. Increasingly there is a strong abstract element, but there are recognisable parts that draw the viewer in; snippets of lettering, nautical structures, architectural lines, motifs, textures and colours that allow the viewer to use their imagination too.
I work in mixed media, combining found papers with layers of painted paper and paint to create a vibrant integrated surface. I layer, scrub, conceal, reveal, construct and deconstruct, deliberately avoiding representational clarity to create a patchwork of places, memories and journeys, all bonded together.
Since lockdown my work has burst out from the confines and conformity of the square. My new series Salvage – Selvedge develops and explores my subject with directness, clarity and freedom that come from a time of restriction and restraint. I have moved away from collage on a paper surface to the raw ingredients of house paint, paper and wooden panels and it is these materials that are delivering a new vocabulary of exciting shapes, edges and surfaces.
