ARTS & CULTURE
“ Painting is a physical and unruly thing.”
WHAT PERSONAL EXPERIENCES TEND TO FIND THEIR WAY ONTO THE CANVAS? Despite ideas I may have had of being an artist, free from traditional social norms and living an unconventional life, I became a mother very young and then a wife and mother of three. I spent years making lunchboxes and going to PTA meetings, while painting in my garage.
I think I aligned my work to the tropes I found in vernacular photograph.
FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER VISITED AN ART GALLERY, WHAT MAKES SPENDING TIME WITH A PAINTING WORTHWHILE? Being in an art gallery or museum allows one time to be inwardly focused, curious, and reflective. It can be a contemplative space where images might prompt memories and imaginings that chime with deeper thoughts and feelings residing in one.
YOUR COLLECTION SAY ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE CREATIVELY AT THIS STAGE OF YOUR CAREER? This collection is a small survey show of work spanning the last 10 years, with largely work on loan from collectors and two new works made especially for the exhibition. It is a themed show, and its title refers to ideas of uncertainty, where figuration and abstraction intertwine, the real meets the unreal and the ordinary moment becomes extraordinary.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE VISITORS TO APPROACH YOUR PAINTINGS? SHOULD THEY LOOK FOR A MEANING OR SIMPLY SEE WHAT THEY SEE? The viewer decides on the meaning for themselves.
When I make a painting, it is invested with the meaning I bring to it, but like a book or a poem, the person experiencing it has their own understanding, interpretation, and private exchange with the work.
WHEN YOU AREN’ T PAINTING, WHAT INSPIRES YOU. All the above inspire me, as well as other artists’ work across millennia.
IF YOU COULD TAKE ONE OF YOUR PAINTINGS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD AND PLACE IT IN A PARTICULAR SETTING, WHERE WOULD YOU PUT IT AND WHY? I love the thought of one of my paintings being in any museum anywhere in the world, where it is valued and a part of their permanent collection.
IS THERE A PARTICULAR IDEA OR DIRECTION YOU ARE EXCITED TO EXPLORE NEXT? Ideas sometimes come through words and concepts. I’ m interested in the phrase“ the unthought known”, coined by the psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas, referring to pre-verbal experience. I feel I can work with this concept in relation to image selection and painting.
Also, I am completing a body of works on paper for a show in the UK this November, titled The Hope of Trees, which speaks to our relationship to trees as a source of support, nurturing, shading, climbing, and entanglement. IB
NOVEMBER 2026 / INBOUND SA 35