March

Hell.

The weather is crazy. Though actually typical for March. I walked into the village in blazing sunshine, no rain coat, no umbrella, only to be caught in a downpour. I got soaked. My ears are still ice cold and to make matters worse I had only just done my hair. When I came back it was blazing sunshine again, although theres just been a clap of thunder. Now I'm staying in. And now looking outside it's pouring, bucketing down. Yet all of the birds are singing the joys of Spring.

Over the years I have written, millions of Personal Statements for my work. I needed to do one for my londonart.co.uk site, so here it is:

The longer I paint – and all right, I’m only 26 – the more purely intuitive the process becomes. The images are inside my head, born of the interaction between my subjective being and environment. All of the old devices of the painter, plein-air easels, sketchbooks, reference photography, studied draughtsmanship, are neither relevant nor necessary. Perhaps what I do might be compared to some highly orchestrated form of Zen. Colour, the language of pigment, is all-important. I work quickly and spontaneously, each image a product of stored feeling and experience.

What all of my painting has in common is an overriding sense of the multiple forces and effects of nature (as anyone even slightly afflicted with claustrophobia could hardly fail to notice!). But none of this can be taken for granted: as a species we have reached the crossroads between survival and annihilation. Which way to we go, and more bleakly, is it in any case too late to make a choice? Such is the raw and extraordinary beauty of our planet – of nature itself – that there can be only one, positive response. We have to get our priorities right, and that takes imagination, and art can help. Art, like science, has grave responsibilities and I like to think that, where art is concerned, the tide has turned away from nihilism and ‘shock’ towards a greater understanding and appreciation of the sheer value and wonder of life.

Since the question is always asked, I can say that the painters whose work I most enjoy include Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Paul Nash, Emil Nolde and – the later – Georges Braque. They are, in their very different ways, kindred spirits, no more, no less. I also see that I’ve used the word ‘enjoy’ and that is the right choice. Art, like being alive, should be enjoyed – and true enjoyment demands respect and concern for everything we encounter. Crisis makes conservationists of us all.

What do you think?

Back later perhaps,

Emy xxx