Landscapes Changing

Whats going on?
90cmx70cm with 5cm blackwood frame- 2022
Acrylic (mixed media) on Board – £350

This work has been smouldering inside me for some time. Trying to find the impetus to actually paint is becoming increasingly hard again. I often feel so desolate and depressed about the world. Asking what is happening and what can I do about it. As an artist, my language is visual, so I am trying to use this language to portray the way I feel about the place I live and the wider world. My inner thoughts are often dark and dismal, while my outside portrays a more positive side (I hope!). I believe I am like this painting many layered, complicated and often misunderstood. It was good to get this feeling out of me and stand in front of it – confronting this inner turmoil. I am actually pleased with this work – it speaks to me.

This work is painted on recycled hardboard and then I reframed it with the thick black wood frame using acrylic and house paint onto a heavy texture of paper and scrim. I paint quickly building up the layers using a palette knife and credit card. Big big paint brushes, old rags and plastic bags to wipe the paint around. I also stand back a lot to just look. Throwing and flicking paint and finishing with a small long haired paintbrush for detail. Knowing when to stop is often the issue. It’s also quite physical and strangely therapeutic and cathartic. Art heals my inner sioux.

A portrait of Teynham

The Blood Line – A Portrait of Teynham
100cmx100cm
Acrylic on Canvas – 2021 – £400

As an artist I feel the need to highlight the sadness and desolation that is happening here in the place I live – my landscape needs our help – there will be blood on our land. my painting is crying it is full of emotional heartache – I am angry and sad. These are my feelings

The Building Crisis both locally and nationally is devasting our landscapes. This government has implemented unrealistic house building numbers on Local Councils. Local Plans are splitting communities. Greedy developers are taking advantage of the farming industry and landowners. This is totally unsustainable. Our green fields are disappearing at an alarming rate we are building on Grade 1 agricultural land, decimating village life. Creating bland housing estates which will be future ghettos. Why?

This work shows the blood line which represents the greed and uncompassionate approach that developers have towards our countryside and local landscapes. The tears I cry for the loss of our countryside, the natural environment that supports and feed us. This work poured out of me with such sadness. It was scary. We are losing so much for so little.

This work is painted with a carrier bag, a credit card, sponges and a water spray. I painted quickly creating a total mess picking up materials and paint as I went on my journey. It is finished with a red jagged horizonal line to represent our blood stained landscape that is being cut out of our green fields and thin gold line  to represent money. This painting cries.

Mutant Flowers – The Future

The BIG Green Week 18th -24th September 2021 with Swale Borough Council

What and Why we are doing the Big Green Week
https://swale.gov.uk/news-and-your-council/news-and-campaigns/latest-news/great-big-green-week

The Full List of Events across Swale are here
https://www.visit-swale.co.uk/visit-swale-blog/great-big-green-week-events-in-swale/?fbclid=IwAR09wskkPgCzHUsNOAmusgm_kFxK_G9uEZK3dHT4bD2lXxRyLNrkNTqPxRc

Sioux is creating an installation to create awareness for the Plastic Bottle deposit return scheme.

Mutant Flowers are starting to appear here at Polka Dot Arts in Teynham

I will be in the Room – the big blue container at Milton Creek County Park Sittingbourne on Saturday September 18th from 10-4pm. I will be running a drop workshop making Mutant flowers which will be planted around the room. Please join me or pop over and view.

Over the next few weeks I will also be adding to this blog with Interesting articles and facts will also be posted here.

Money in the (bottle) bank: deposit return schemes explained

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/introducing-a-deposit-return-scheme-drs-for-drinks-containers-bottles-and-cans/outcome/introducing-a-deposit-return-scheme-drs-in-england-wales-and-northern-ireland-executive-summary-and-next-steps

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/plastic-bottle-deposit-return-scheme-recycle-b1898447.html

https://www.recycle-more.co.uk/household/recycling-facts

https://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/plastic-bottles-0

The Plastic Bottle now has its own Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bottle

THE WASTE WIZARD LINK for Swale Borough Council – so easy to use https://swale.gov.uk/bins-littering-and-the-environment/bins/what-goes-in-your-bin

The Power of Flowers

The Power of Flowers
120x84cm
Acrylic on Canvas – 2021- £350

I have wanted to paint some kind of abstract flowers for ages but I have not been able to. Tried but nothing happened. I need to be able to feel the painting, feel the mood of the work, that feeling just hadn’t been there. I walk past the canvas everyday but nothing calls me. My head is too full of stuff to concentrate and take time out.

I have had a head cold recently and been very sad and exhausted, so have done nothing for a week except rest, cry and blow my nose. Then suddenly I wake up, walk in my studio, pick up some pink paint and everything just happens it is manic, it happened. I sat on the warm concrete outside my studio and just painted. No thought process, just picking up colours, brushes and rags. I was so ecstatic and energised when I has finished. The layers, the colours the feeling. The relief. It bought me such emotional release and sheer joy. I can stand next to this and say I love it. Thank you painting for letting you paint me.

This is painted on a old vinyle canvas stretched over board. When I was a graphic designer (along time ago) I did some big photographic works for hotels, restuarants this was a sample I gave to my mum, she returned it recently. The paint is a mix of household emulsion and acrylics. I drybrushed the background. Undercoated some of the flowers with white then added yellows, purples and oranges. then finished with the drip effect. I painted with brushes and rags. Colour has such an effect on me. This is dedicated to my love of nature.

Finding my Inner Artist – Abstract 2021

  • Dreaming of Spring
  • Not Everything is …..
  • Green Street
  • Festive Spirit
  • A Ray of Hope
  • Ode to Hoyland
  • Lynsted Fields
  • New Age of Anger
  • My Happy Place

Dreaming of Spring – £250
29x119cm
Acrylic on Board – 2021
I feel I have completed my first collection, with this piece. It is Green a calming, centring colour, a colour for nature and connectivity. I painted this with a credit card pulling the paint around, enjoying sitting and watching it grow in the Spring light that shon through my window.
It now feel I am ready again for the next part of my journey in life.

Not Everything is Black and White – £250
60x86cm
Acrylic on Canvas – 2021
We have a lot of decisions to make in our lives. A lot of choices, but not everything so simple or black and white. A lot is being discussed but sometimes there are no clear answers, there are no clear paths or solutions to our problems. Life has become very bizarre, weird and isolating during lockdown. I have been given time to think to reflect and maybe change but its not always easy or that straight forward. I believe that Art is about questioning so am I just putting off deciding what I want to do?

Green Street – £350
90x90cm
Acrylic on Canvas – 2021
I actually live in Green Street, but it is now the A2. Nature is in crisis. I walk in green fields which we are killing. Every day I walk with my Colin and our dog Twiglet in the wonderfully beauteous Kent Countryside, but I worry for its future I worry what we as humans are doing  I wanted people to see the big picture not just their own little world, but I also believe that’s asking too much. We are all struggling externally and internally. Sometimes it’s obvious that someone is in turmoil but sometimes it isn’t. We should not judge each other, but sadly do.
I consciously wanted to paint a green canvas – It was supposed be similar to “New Age of Anger” the red work a twin piece, but I didn’t connect with it. I couldn’t make it work like the red one. So I left it the one day I took courage and threw red paint at it. That feeling of freedom and abandonment was so just freeing and meaningful to me and all of sudden the painting came to life.

Festive Spirit – £250
49x57cm
Acrylic on Board – 2021I have found the drip technique suits my style in this collection. As I have cried a lot during lockdown for many different reasons and not all sad. And many of my abstract seem to naturally turn into landscapes, which I find interesting as I try to paint without thinking, as I find this more intuitive and calming. This piece is another one that just happened. My work seems to happen quickly so is energetic and releasing. I will paint a canvas/board with a colour randomly just to get rid of the nothingness. Then leave it laying around – I walk past it a lot until a colour pops into me. This one was just a festival of colour. Not sure if it’s because I was happy or totally mixed up in my brain, but it is how I often see the world in a haze of brilliance. For me colour is a trigger for my work.

A Ray of Hope – £250
49x57cm
Acrylic on Glass – 2021
Its back to Black. This piece I painted on a very dark mood day – I actually painted in straight onto another work directly on the glass. It has tile adhesive to give it texture., I didn’t think about the consequences I was angry, so disappointed with a situation and sad and needed to vent. Black has always been my safe colour the colour I spent my youth in it, after I finished. I felt safe and calm again and there was light and hope again in my world. 

Ode to Hoyland – £250
53x72cm
Acrylic on Board – 2021
John Hoyland is an English abstract painter. I have always loved his work and as part of my abstract experimentation I looked at how he painted rather than what he painted. Abstract painting is a lot about finding a technique that works for you that you as an artist can control, utilise and manipulate into your own style. I am enjoying bright bold colours, texture and palette knife painting using tools that are laying around, bits of sponge, credit cards, cling film and feeling a painting rather than seeing the realism of the work. I feel this is me.

Lynsted Fields – NFS
60x80cm
Acrylic on Board – Framed – 2021
This piece was not what I intended to paint. It came as a shock. It is not my normal style or colour preference. I do not know how I painted it, but it turned out to be so significant at the time. I was devastated and shocked by local news, my inner-self was breaking. This was a release of the pain and disbelieve I was feeling. It really does look like the field I have walked my dog in nearly everyday since lockdown.
Our subconscious thoughts and places often reveal themselves in our works.

New Age of Anger – £300
90x90cm
Acrylic on Canvas – 2021
My paintings are linked to my inner self and being able to express our emotions through creativity is integral to my-self worth. Red is a highly emotive colour it is for love, passion, danger and anger.
I believe we are emotional beings of many layers. My emotions have been pouring out of me lately in paint. I did not realise how angry I am with my life, my fellow beings, with myself and how we do not look after our world or our selves. These are my inner feelings which I was shocked to find. But I have released them onto the canvas. Freeing myself again..

My Happy Place – NFS
106x76cm
Acrylic on paper – Framed – 2021
I have to admit this work just jumped out of me. It was desperate to get out. This was the first piece I actually painted to the frame and wanted a scene but not a scene. Abstract is a paint style for my emotions – I try not to be to think too much to not pre judge or have pre conceived ideas. I was happy painting this and I think it shows, it was a relief to be back being creative. I found it reassuring knowing that I could still paint and actually find my style again. I find I am exceptionally self-critical and self-conscious of my showing my own work. This is my happy place, a place I can go to, I can walk through it I can stay there and I can become calm and at peace with myself.