ECHOES EXHIBITION ARTIST TALK

SO WHAT IS AN ARTIST TALK?
In this case it was a chance for artists' exhibiting at the Echoes exhibition at the 44AD artspace to chat about the inspiration and story behind their work.  Often if you chat to an artist they will happily talk about the inspiration but the conversations are often fleeting and you feel like you've just scratched the surface. I found it fascinating to listen to the other artists and find that 10 different artists had 10 different approaches to creating their art. 

WHAT PAINTING DID I TALK ABOUT?
I was sharing my thoughts about a small painting of mine called 'Time Stands Still'. My inspiration started with a trip to the north Norfolk coast; as a family we had hired bikes and during our excursion had come across a place called Wells-next-the-Sea. A perfect place to stop to rest our legs and in my case get my sketchbook out. 

 I don't know if you've been here but the sky is expansive with clouds racing across the sky and the sand was being whipped up in flurries.  And it was empty - so looking out across the beach towards the pines on the headland watching the tide ebb & flow it felt to me timeless. There are many places I'm sure you've encountered, which author Richard Rohr calls 'living in deep time', where you have a heightened awareness and feeling of timelessness; where the boundary between self and reality blurs and time stands still (Oliver Burkeman.) You can feel yourself being transported back hundreds of years realising that nothing has really changed. Generations before you would have walked along the same tracks with friends and family, had similar conversations and looked upon the same scene (though perhaps not quite as eroded!)

HOW DID THESE IMPRESSIONS FEED INTO MY PAINTING?
It's a feeling of a thread weaving itself across the ages - that ethereal sense where nothing is quite fixed or distinct that I used as a starting point when painting this piece. I started with charcoal and ink using line and washes to describe the sense of the coast, then colour and marks to create a sense of shifting and indistinctness. The loose marks suggest movement physically and also metaphorically across the ages. It is one of four paintings that I created inspired by this stretch of coastline.

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