Night and Day, Artist Statement

This exhibition is made up of around forty small oil paintings. Some are paintings of nudes and flesh, made in collaboration with life models. Others are autobiographical - paintings of my home and my daughter, Mabel. Although the subject matter appears different, they come from the same place. They are about looking, and paying attention to the things that are closest to me.

I experience painting as an act of attention and devotion. When I become absorbed in painting, my mind becomes quiet. I no longer see objects as simply objects, or bodies as simply bodies; they dissolve into abstract shapes, patterns and relationships. There is something very democratic about this way of looking. Every body and every object is equally beautiful.

I am interested in seeing skin as a mosaic of colour and light, and in playing with paint and the surface of the paint itself. I don't want the surface to feel flat; I like it to be lively and painterly, almost like a type of handwriting.

Drawing by hand as a way of solving problems, is the foundation of the way I work. The process I use, and the way I solve those problems, becomes the aesthetic of the painting. I don't try to hide that process. I want the searching, the changes of mind and the decisions to remain visible. I don't want the paintings to look smooth or polished. I like the way broken colour and scrubby edges disrupt the sense of things looking "too real". Painting has this ability to exist between worlds - for something to be recognisable as our own world while, at the same time, feeling like something from another. For me paintings belong in the same realm as dreams and memories and i dont like them to feel too pinned down.

I love how painting can elevate ordinary moments and objects into something funny or poetic. Many of the same objects, rooms and scenes are repeated throughout the paintings, creating a sense of rhythm. I'm interested in mining the same subjects again and again, feeling the tug of returning to an object or a scene until I'm done with it. Partly this comes from the fact that we live in a very small house, so the same views and moments naturally present themselves over and over. I also have a tireless obsession with painting faces and figures.

I spend a lot of time looking at the effects of light: the atmosphere of night, and the strong, clear patterns of light and shadow during the day. These changing rhythms of light and time run throughout the work, tying the paintings together as much as the repeated subjects themselves.

I think the work also reflects the shape of my life. I am a full-time single working mum, and my days are full. I don't have the time to sit and contemplate large paintings or grand ideas. Most of these paintings were made in small parcels of time, between school runs, teaching and portrait commissions. I paint quickly and intuitively, grabbing whatever surface is to hand, often little offcuts of wood, and working within the constraints of the school day. The pace of my life inevitably shapes the pace of my painting.

I hope something of this way of looking makes its way to the viewer: a sense of beauty, light, humour, and home as a place of love and safety. I also hope that something of who I am comes across.