I’ve deliberately avoided digitally posting anything anywhere for sometime wanting to let my ideas meander and allow a new studio routine to emerge post Royal Drawing School ODDY. I struggled initially post exhibition, I worked, but what I made felt rather disjointed and streaky. But I’ve persevered and during the lovely long summer holidays I’ve relaxed into my practice in tandem with working on the garden and at this point both those things feel satisfactory.
I’m working around themes of children’s play, love/death/loss and representations of figures in landscape contexts. So not moving far from my usual interests, but I notice landscape and gardens coming increasingly to the fore as stages where things happen (a consequence of living more rurally, having responsibility for a large garden and more travel opportunity in my van perhaps?)
I’ve consciously been collecting landscapes through drawing during the summer and I’m aware of planning the future garden as an imagination aid and a setting for paintings. Enacting plans in the garden feels like physically negotiating a pictorial composition and the work I do out there impacts on my studio practice, some how I feel more vital, air to breathe and air to work.
