A little bit about my art

‘Oh, you’re an artist! What are your paintings like?’ I frequently get asked this question and always struggle to describe my work. ‘To define is to limit,’ said Oscar Wilde’ - I have no intention of limiting my art any time soon.

It’s funny how much of life we want to put into a neat little box. Perhaps it is busyness? Always in such a rush. These days I don’t really do succinct. I do abundant. More, not less. Expansive, not contracted. Which has reminded me – maybe I have been struggling with my current paintings because, once again, I am painting smaller? Trying to be sensible. Practical. Squeezing myself into an undersized space. I do not want to be squeezed, I want to breath.

Painting feels like breathing.

Breathing means working large, even when it feels impractical.

A recent mentoring session became particularly helpful in defining some my painting practice. We were chatting about the difference between my drawings (black and white and worked from life) and my paintings (colourful, playful, and worked from my imagination). The two are quite different.

I paint from my imagination.

Lisa, my mentor, asked me – “What does drawing not have that you are protecting it from?”

Say that again?! My brain suitably scrambled I stared at her dumbly. Each time I went to answer I noticed that I was answering the wrong question. In the end I wrote it down to revisit later. Still, it took a while before the answer came to me, floating into my mind whilst out walking. Risk. Drawing does not involve risk. Drawing is safe. Painting, on the other hand, is risky.

Painting is where I take risks.

When I started painting a few years ago I did not begin here. As a lifelong ‘risk-averse, play-it-safe good girl’, why would I? I started with painting from life; still life and landscapes. In oils. It was a lovely way to paint. And, as a natural extension of my drawing practice, it felt safe.

But it soon became clear to me that painting this way wasn’t scratching the itch. Frustratingly, The itch was demanding more. The itch wanted me to paint how things feel.

Painting is feeling.

Euwwww. Squirm. Perhaps this is where the risk comes in. Growing up we were a family that did not do feelings. We were not allowed to have the bad ones (let’s all pretend they aren’t there), and we didn’t do the good ones either. We tiptoed around each other, quietly watching. My feelings learnt how to observe not participate. Now they want out. The bad ones have had their time (stuff them down for long enough and eventually they make you sick), now I am ready to live and express the good stuff in life.

Free to be me. Perhaps this is the greatest freedom there is? The freedom of knowing all parts of oneself, and the willingness to show up in the word as her, regardless of what others may think or say.

I paint how it feels to be free.

And what else might there be, that that this recently released me, wishes to express in paint?

She wants to shout about the joy, the fun, the beauty, the magic and the wonder of life – with a wild, exuberant giddiness. She wants to say, ‘we can’t change what is going on in the world, we can’t change our past, and we can’t change other people; but we can change ourselves and we can change how we choose to see.’

Look how lucky we are, look how amazing our planet is. Choose to see the good.

I paint the fun, joy, awe and wonder that I choose to see in the world.

Magical moments, burnt into my memory, with the intensity and fleetingness of dreams. I dream in technicolour. Bright, vivid, intense, over-the-top, colour. I use a lot of fluorescent paint in my art. Last summer, at open studios, I had a visitor look at one of my paintings and say to her friend, “well, the flowers in my garden aren’t that colour”. I smiled. In my, world, they are. We get to choose how we see.

I paint with bright, fluroescent, fun, over-the-top, colour.

Fun. Always so important. My creative practice and my paintings are imbued with a sense of fun. The world seems so keen to dampen fun, often viewing it as silly, frivolous, lacking in worthyness. ‘Grow up, get serious. Life values the person who suffers for the greater good.’ Do you really believe this? Or is this something you have inherited; an unwanted heirloom, dark and awkward.

‍ ‍Painting is fun.

Mark making is important, how I apply the paint onto the canvas. I LOVE using brushes. The feeling of choosing which brush, holding it lightly, the way my hand moves over the canvas, the sense of a mark. Freedom, joy, fun, hope, laughter – these emotions ask for a light touch. A ‘swoooooosh’. Spontaneous. Intuitive. Delicious. Unapologetic joy.

Brush marks are spontaneous and intuitive.

My paintings begin with a playful, chaotic mess of colourful marks. It sounds so easy yet some days I can be so hesitant, so fearful of getting it wrong and of making a mess. It is crazy really, there is no wrong and the point is to make a mess! Life is messy. We make mistakes and we learn and grow. How will I ever manage this in life if I am fearful on the canvas? Let go of the control freakery Helen, there is no place for it here.

Painting is my daily practice in letting go.

From the chaotic mess of playful marks I begin to tease out form. Shapes emerge. Ideas float into my mind. Memories, stories, moments. Sometimes this happens at a completely subconscious level. It’s me painting, yet not me.

It is a weird sensation to look at what you have painted and not recognise where it has come from or the person who has created it.

I love the paintings that emerge like this, even when they feel ‘way too much’. Most often it is a combined effort - half subconscious brain painting messy, playful freedom, and half logical brain making sense of what it finds.

Painting is making sense from the non-sense.

How do I know when a painting is finished? Once again, it is a feeling. A sense.

I like my paintings to feel like movement and music. A dance.

Fluid. Suggestive. Evocative.

Thus far I am not particularly prolific in finished pieces. Perhaps from reading this, you will understand why. Sometimes, when the paint refuses to flow, I can force a painting across some sort of a finish line. But I never like the outcome. The painting will lurk for a while; my rational brain telling me it’s fine, a decent painting, while my insides sense the inauthenticity. Inevitably it will be painted over. Always a relief.

If I had to sum all of this up in a couple of sentences you would be non the wiser as to how my paintings look. I might say,

Painting is my therapy and my teacher. Every day she holds up a mirror, revealing who I am being, and who it is I wish to be.

Me. Unapologetically, authentically me. The best version of me that I can possibly be.

As ever, a work in progress.

Thanks for being here,

Helen x