I started painting at Adult Education classes in 1993.
In 2001 my daughter Lucy died by suicide.
I felt as though my life was devoid of any meaning.
I was impelled to do something more profound with my painting and so I enrolled on a one year foundation course in Art and Design. This paved the way to applying for a part-time University place in Fine Art. I accepted an offer from Westminster University. I started the degree as a part-time student in 2004. To study for a degree in Fine Art is beyond all my wildest dreams. The realities have got better and better.
In 2007 I won a university scholarship for academic achievement.
As part of a module named 'Professional Practice' I exhibited at Theatro Technis in Camden and received a 'not unflattering' review in a local newspaper Link here 'Artist's poem for a neighbour who told her to paint'. I specialise in landscape painting using both oils and watercolours.
Nature is the most healing and forgiving friend that I have. I love to take long solitary walks in the countryside. My favourite places are forests. There is nothing more magical than the blanketed silence of a pine forest. The trees, covered with lichen, can give an almost ghostly appearance.
I am influenced by the great tradition of English landscape painters of the nineteenth century such as John Constable and Joseph William Mallord Turner. I am also inspired by contemporary German artists such as Anselm Kiefer and Marielle Neudecker both of whom have referenced German Romanticism.
My son Jamie, whose profession is arboriculture, related to me the theory of Phoenix Regeneration. This is when a veteran tree such as an oak is blown down after a storm. Vigorous shoots will grow from the broken tree trunk thus producing new trees. I like to think that I am like one of those new trees growing after the oak was felled by the storm.
