About Me
I have exhibited, been commissioned and sold my Portraits, Sculptures, Drawings, Ceramics and Paintings in Singapore, Sweden, Turkey, America and England.
It is wonderful being back in England after thirty years abroad and at last getting my hands back into clay and paint after twelve years sailing our boat to many different countries and islands on both sides of the Atlantic.
I am fortunate and privileged to have had a studio converted for me in a friends garden only three doors down the road from our house.
This provides me with a golden opportunity to restart my Career back in England as a Fine Artist after 30 years out of the country.
I was born in South Africa where I trained as a Fine Artist in Durban, Natal, majoring in sculpture, leaving the country for England in 1972. In 1983 I began life as an expat, living in Singapore, Stockholm, Hong Kong and Boston MA.
In Boston I studied Painting at The Boston Museum Of Fine Arts; Ceramics and Bronze Casting at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design and ran my own art studio for 15 years from where I sold and had many artworks commissioned; took part in group exhibitions and had one woman shows.
In 2002 my husband and I sold our home and moved onto our beautiful sailing boat, Concerto, cruising her on both sides of the Atlantic, visiting many fascinating countries and islands.
I love seeing both the macro and the micro in Nature - how the colours of the sunset can be repeated in the shell of a lobster. How life is generated on the edge between land and water in so many diverse forms.
How a clumsy looking bird like a Pelican is actually incredibly streamlined when it come to diving from a great height and unerringly catching its prey. Their wise and humorous eyes taking you in when on land.
My sculptures are imbued with a sense of the shape and load of hills and valleys streams and rivers just like our bodies are.
Observation and empathy with my subject are two cornerstones in my drawing, painting and sculpture. I am fascinated by how landscape influences people in almost every aspect of their lives. Always having been a city girl the transition to being underway on our sailing boat, as a way of life, was a shock at first, then learning to live with and observe the rhythms and colours of the sea and the land on the edge of it, was a joy and a great adventure, full of wonders, as well as endlessly diverse people.
We left what I call “Planet Water” when we finally sold our beloved boat in the Spring of 2014 and settled in the Wylye Valley in Wiltshire. The Wylye Valley Art Trail being one of the draws that attracted us to the area.
I have been leading a Portrait Group for nearly 3 years now, made up of ten artists. I must pay tribute to Anthony Connelly, the brilliant local Portraitist, whose workshop inspired me to start our Portrait Group. This takes place weekly in my local Parish Hall. We come from as far afield as Somerset, as well as Salisbury and more locally.
Five of us are once more taking part in the Wylye Valley Art Trail. The 2017 WVAT being our first and proved to be a rewarding experience for all.
I am very fortunate and grateful to have a pool of friends and neighbours in my locality who are patient and self sacrificing enough to sit for our group. In this way my practice as a portrait artist, and that of my group, is growing and developing.
My plan for the near future is to hold a one woman exhibition of portraits of these friends and neighbours, all local, in our Parish Hall.
Some of my Influences are as follows ----
- Lucian Freud - early interpretive portraits
- Vassily Kandinsky - whose lyrical colours and abstract biomorphic shapes continue to enchant and inspire me.
- German Expressionism for its full and passionate use of colour
- The Horse Sculptures of Marino Marini and Olivia Musgrave (horses where my first love) - Henri Gaudia-Brzeska - whose sculpture exhibits such an explosive primitive power and depth of expression, is an inspiration
If there is one thing I am never without it is a small travelling water-colour set, pencils, a brush or two and an artist’s journal.