About work:
We are all meant to shine.
Motivation to paint must be connected with something meaningful and personal this can only come from inside.
Many emotional struggles festered and I knew my inner child needed healing. The desire to create was strong but I felt the need to escape, to search for new prospective and fresh objectivity.
Since I believe that freedom is paramount I left for Australia, my idealised epitome of freedom. All those beaches! But as I found to my cost you can’t escape from yourself.
I was forced to review my purpose and to discover new and enjoyable ways of earning a living.
The stunning landscapes inspired my artistic expression. I was soon painting prolifically for local galleries.
I also ‘pit fired’ clay pots and hand built sculpture in my ‘al fresco’ studio, deep in the Australian bush.
I lost all artistic inspiration and returned to England with a large cancerous lump, aggravated by the stress.
(I just began to feel well again and was hit by a car so off I went back to hospital with a fractured pelvis. Why did the artist cross the road? Because she thought it was hip. Pelvis. Hip. Oh well. Such is life.)
Having survived both incidents with sanity intact, well almost, I continue to paint and sculpt with fervour.
My paintings are quirky and often childlike, jumping randomly from one theme to another as different thoughts of the past compel me to express different moods and styles.
I will continue to bombard my audience with an array of paintings until I hit on that magical ‘je ne sais pas’ that stuns the art world, quells my inner child and causes my spirit to shine.
Ann
My message:
A while back I launched the ‘Paint for the People’ project, a successful community event.
I placed two large, blank canvases in the middle of a local shopping centre to attract the shopper’s attention. All were then welcome, young and old, artistic or not, to make their mark on the canvas.
Lots of people were keen to get involved. The activity encouraged people to come together and be enthusiastic about art. The resulting community painting was then placed in the centre for all to admire.
An extensive article then featured in the Flora International magazine when I combined sculpture with floral art.
