PF: Who or what has influenced your work the most?
It’s a confluence of memories and experiences. Starting from childhood, visiting museums and galleries - I especially loved the V&A and would draw there when I was very small. Taking wax rubbings of tree bark and building fairy gardens as a kid also stand out in my mind. I try to keep that child present with me as I work. Reflecting now, I think my work is fuelled by that innate desire to connect with nature and beauty. Then as a teen discovering contemporary oil painting, particularly Amy Sillman, Sarah Pickstone and Peter Doig, and being so enamoured by the versatility of paint.
PF: Walk us through your creative process?
Before a painting can begin I have to prime the surface of the wood, and as I do this I'm considering the scale of the painting I'm about to make. This work is monotonous (gesso, sand, gesso sand and so on) which I feel awakens and allows the creative brain to start working. So I'm familiarising myself with the scale and starting to imagine a composition forming. When it comes to the painting, I usually close my eyes and an image will come, maybe a singular form and colour that I'm very sure of and I will then put this down, other times the whole composition forms in my head before I begin. There's an archive of mind's eye imagery that I draw from, stored in my brain from things I've seen. Principally nature and lately a lot of architectural forms, especially Art Nouveau lines. I sometimes lightly under-paint and sketch in the forms, and other times feel a lot more certain and paint immediately.
PF: What do you want people to feel or take away from your art?
My work began from a place of feeling lost, and through the creative process and discipline I gained aliveness and confidence. So for me, the paintings are synonymous with joy, regeneration and the female spirit. I attach emotional intimacy to the delicate layered brushstrokes, kinetic aliveness in the forms and confidence in the strong lines intersecting the compositions. It's wonderful if the viewer can leave with a sense of this. But above all enjoyment. If it awakens a personal memory for them, I also really love that too.
PF: How important is the viewer’s interpretation versus your intention?
I think once it leaves the studio it no longer belongs to me entirely anymore. It begins a new life in the world, taking on fresh meanings and contexts. And I feel it’s important to relinquish sole ownership and let it register differently with each viewer. Their interpretations are absent in the solitude of the studio, but when I get to have a conversation about a piece in the outside world, it's always very meaningful.
PF: If you could have dinner with any artist who would it be?
Probably Hilma af Klint because we could talk about Mysticism, thought forms, nature and colour. Her works were all shown posthumously, so it would also be cool to hear how she feels about them now they're out in the world and being exhibited inernationally.