I would describe myself like a landscape I’ve studied at length, in detail.
—Rilke
I have lived in some almost wild places and loved many gardens. From the wild of the Hawkesbury river in Australia with its tidal waters deep and rushing, to the wild Blue Mountains with large noisy birds and silent eucalypt forests, where I was never far from the ocean.
To places on the opposite side of the world - Tuscany, Italy with ancient olive groves, and wild forgotten gardens; Florence with lemon trees in terracotta, rose gardens, tiny quiet birds, and monumental trees, where I am never far from the sea.
I see the world through my experiences of almost wild places and gardens, growth bloom, decay, seeds. With these cycles and seasons the rhythm of my own life is reflected back to me. I paint what interests me, which is nature and to express emotion and memories.
‘My paintings aren’t about art issues. They’re about a feeling that comes to me from the outside from landscape…my paintings aren’t about the person who makes them, either. My paintings have to do with feelings.’
Joan Mitchell - 1974
I work from my studio in Florence, Italy. My painting is focused on spontaneity, the movement of slow passage with the intention of arriving at a place of clarity, unity and fullness.
The conception of the work comes from many sources; gardens, almost wild places, memory and imagination, each work has its own identity.
Making studies - the backbone of my work - is my response to the subject and a way of discovery.
The structure within the painting is also a discovery as the painting emerges, line interacting with paint, moving between presence and absence.
The energy comes from how I paint with passages that move through the painting that are both busy and quiet. Increasingly, I am working with layering close shifts of tone and colour, that inform the painting in the same way that the initial drawing is crucial to the work; colour and paint work together with subtlety and energy.
