About

Art

I trained as a designer, but have returned to my love of painting, which has been with me all my life.

I work mainly in acrylic which suits my impulse to get ideas down quickly, though many of my paintings are built up in many layers over months.

My particular focus on landscape as a subject began in childhood. Holidays spent walking in the Highlands of Scotland and Snowdonia, climbing hills and exploring wild places have always been my chief source of inspiration.

Moving to Cornwall in 2001 provided a new, rich seam of inspiration. The extraordinary palette of colours, and a new appreciation of the great forces at work in nature; tides, weather, geology, all shaped my approach to my subject.

My process varies according to the subject, and the atmosphere I wish to convey. Emotions and memories of a place will guide the way I load and apply the paint, but there is also a sense of something deeper; the natural world engenders a feeling of comforting insignificance when viewed through the perspective of geological time and this expression of time and space is a prominent factor in all my work.

Everything from capturing a fleeting moment of light or movement to translating a sense of greater, slower forces has become an ongoing quest, worthy of a lifetime of study.

Photograph of Sarah, above, by our friend Alban at St Ives Community TV.