I recently spent a morning writing about my influence to someone in a gallery in New York, whom I thought was interested in representing me. Sadly, after sending some images and putting these words together he asked for 150 dollars to feature in some catalogue of theirs. So that was that. I am used to being sent scammy messages, like this one I got this morning from so-called “Mr Beast” which read ‘Hi, You have some pretty amazing works, all I can say is Awesome! It must have taken a lot of time to put these magnificent pieces together..they are so unique..I’m so in love with then. I’d love to purchase some of them if i can be informed about them. Looking forward to hearing from you. Best Regards Mr Beast’. I just ignore those sorts of messages.
I suppose I was annoyed that I spent sometime answering this one. Why did I bother, well despite some misgivings, the Instagram account associate with ethe gallery had some really good artists on it. Anyway, I thought I’d publish the summary here in case people would appreciate an overview of my work as a whole.
My work is influenced primarily by US artists especially post-Edward Hopper American realists who revere light shadow and the sense of stillness and quiet. One of my favourite contemporary America Artists is Jessica Brilli who I traded paintings with a couple of years ago.
The only British artist I am influenced by is the late David Hockney, who obviousy was greatly inspired by American art. I include a few paintings to illustrate how I attempted to bring an American sensibility to the Irish landscape and more recently to the Welsh landscape in the UK. Here some examples
This composition was inspired by Fairfield Porter
In this series I attempted to pare all detail down – I called this style rural minimal.
A number of these paintigns have become book covers.
Recent innovations to this style have involved a more obvious use of texture inspired by the Bay Area artists, among others like Mitchell Johnson.
A recent development in my work has concentrated on another US inspiration, Richard Diebenkorn particularly his Ocean Park series of paintings. Using my husband’s drone photography I have been interested in exploring texture and composition primarily. These recent paintings show this style and they are still available to buy.
Finally I have occasional detours into acrylic gouche which seems to allow me to paint in a slightly different way to oil and acrylic – normally on hard board but I have really liked the results. I have tried to bring an American sensibililty to Irish and British landscapes.
