[Beverley]

Hello everyone. I’ve had a go at writing my statement, see below. Many thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

For many years I worked as a journalist. I went out, conducted research and wrote about my discoveries. My artwork is an extension of this practice. It is still about seeking and recording, only now I use a camera rather than a notebook and I interpret my findings as paintings.

The camera helps me explore my surroundings. By being playful with focus, focal point and zoom, I find new details and angles that are not immediately obvious to the naked eye. Sometimes a photo works in its own right, and sometimes it invites further development as a painting.

Common threads to my work are colour and texture, particularly on surfaces affected by the passage of time. I look for these elements when out in nature, for example in the bark of a tree, in moss and lichen spreading over rocks, or ripples on a lake. They are also present in our urban environment, in a crumbling wall, in rust eating into corrugated iron or paint peeling off a weathered door. It’s especially pleasing to put together contrasting surfaces – the rough next to the smooth, the old beside the new, and the organic beside something man-made.

I bring out these elements using textured pastes with sand, lava particles and glass beads. These are layered with acrylic, oil and spray paint, which lead to interesting and sometimes surprising effects and colour combinations. Sometimes I add extra interest by drawing with oil pastels or scraping away paint to reveal colour underneath. My intention is to engage with our environment in the way that is most meaningful to me and to connect with others through my images.