|
I was born in Yorkshire in 1959. Most of my childhood was spent on Exmoor, which is where I came to think of as home. My memories are entwined with the landscape, of woodland and moors that are wild, inspiring and extremely beautiful when covered with purple heather. On Exmoor I rode and went hunting.
When I was eight years old, my parents separated. My sister and I would spend the summer holidays in London with my father. I started painting and drawing at a young age, always encouraged by my parents. Painting was a world I entered freely. I sold my first painting aged eight.
My family background was one of creativity and bohemia. My father studied ceramics and sculpture and later went on to develop a career at the London film school. My younger sister and I often accompanied my father to the National film theatre in London to watch films by Bunuel, Fellini, Rohmer, Goddard ... it was very exciting to be in this atmosphere of “New wave cinema.”
My mother was a practising ceramicist, whilst also teaching Greek and French.
At the age of 13, I went to an international co-educational Boarding school near Winchester, based on the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, (1895-1986), a renowned Indian spiritual teacher. From a young age I listened to Krishnamurti give talks and participated in student discussions with him. His vision was the whole broad observation of the human condition with his powerful explorations about the nature of truth and freedom from the self. He questioned if it was possible through meditation and a total stillness of mind, for that which is timeless and eternal to come into being? http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/
At boarding school I loved the art department, and spent as much time there as possible. Art transported me and I would draw, draw, and draw, quite obsessively and paint luscious still lives, always working out ways in which to express myself with paint. In the summer of 1976 I cycled from Hampshire to Switzerland to listen to one of Krishnamurti’s talks in Saanen.
At the end of my studies in 1979, I travelled to India on an exchange for three months to visit the two other Krishnamurti schools in Varanasi and Bangalore. I taught Art and English in these schools and fell in love with India. I stayed for almost a year later working in Calcutta in a rehabilitation centre for handicapped children.
1980 back in England and the beginning of my art career, BA Honours and M.A at Chelsea school of Art, (1985-86.)
After my Masters degree I always continued to rent studio spaces with other artists, exhibiting regularly in galleries and open studio weekends. These were a huge success. In the past I have always sold well with people coming back to buy regularly, and investing in my career as a painter.
I returned to India in 1992, staying at “Arts Acre” an international artist’s village outside Calcutta. My accommodation and my exhibition with the British High Commission was sponsored by “Arts Acre.” With twenty works and slides to give a seminar/ slide show, I packed my small suitcase and large portfolio and set off to Calcutta.
While there, I drew and painted with a sense of urgency. My Indian coloured collages became part of a recycling process, Bengali newsprint, pieces of torn saris from the pavements, peeled advertisements from the streets of Calcutta, all added a sense of poignancy. I constantly sought to express an intensity of emotion. I would write at night under my mosquito net, trying to capture that underlying spirit of mysticism that is the central and inescapable experience of India.
At the end of three months, I had over fifty works on paper; charcoal drawings, gouaches, collages, Indian inks. Most of these works are now owned by private individuals, bar a few which I kept back. After the intense creative period in Calcutta, and leaving a relationship of twelve years, I became ill with Rheumatoid Arthritis. The ensuing three years were very dark and I was in a lot of pain and could hardly walk. I was so afraid that I would not be able to do what I loved doing which was my painting. Throughout the intense pain and the coping with everything alone, I always tried to remain positive and took all the necessary steps to heal myself. An Architects practice sponsored one of my shows in Bloomsbury where 20% of proceeds went to the Childline Charity.
When I got arthritis I stopped painting for a year. No energy in my legs, no inspiration. Instead I challenged what creativity I had into the piano I had played as a child and learnt the “Moonlight sonata” by heart. With my arthritis slowly receding, I began to emerge from my years of darkness enriched and strengthened. After four and a half years of living alone, I met and married my husband and had three children. In that time, my passion never subsided. I started painting again seriously when the boys went to nursery, with my thoughts tuned into getting back into the market place and selling again.
My current paintings began with a striking image of dolls from the Financial times. The article; a lawsuit between Mattel and MGA entertainment, the makers of Barbie and Bratz. It was the sheer amount of money being sued for, the million dollar business of the dolls, that lead onto thoughts about our plastic throwaway society, the conditioning and exploitation of young minds. When the global credit crisis hit I became fascinated with reading about the financial markets, companies, corporate leaders and how the financial markets are linked to the world of power.
How could I construct a visual language about the effects that capitalism, consumerism, plastic society, power, money and sex, have on the human psyche?
The dolls/young girls placed against world financial markets become a metaphor and icon for power, sex, subliminal mind control, exploitation, loss of innocence, sexualized object, celebrity culture.
|
