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My earliest memories are of colour are in Africa where I was born. Then, when I was eight, in Spain, there was a drawing of a lion in a jungle with snakes and birds in coloured pastels. Years later at St. Martins School of Art, where I did my Foundation and continued to do film making as my degree, I was seduced by the printmaking floor and spent the next three years etching, covered in black ink. The process of covering a metal plate with wax and creating lines and form etched by acid with images appearing as if by magic .Its that magic that I look for in my paintings today.
I started painting when I moved to NewYork. I
had a desire to immerse myself in colour and work on a large scale which
meant leaving printing behind.
My paintings are my world, my fascination for people, plants, animals
and colour, how I perceive things with all their energy. I have spent
my life travelling and living in different countries, always trying
to see things with a fresh eye, my senses constantly being stimulated,
any preconceived ideas challenged. For this reason I don't like the
confines of the canvas or of perspective and more often than not my
figures burst forth. The painting itself is like a journey for me. I
start off with a primed black canvas and no preconceived idea of what
I am going to paint. Working from black, there is energy and dynamism
in every brush stroke that it starts to feed the painting .The face
is the first thing I paint and the story begins or the world develops.
The face tells me where it is and what's going on. I never paint the
eyes until the last point of the painting, and at that point the painting
doesn't need me anymore for it has its own personality.
The whole experience of Star Portraits was fascinating for me. Painting is such an isolated solitary process that to paint in front of cameras with a time frame, knowing that there would be an audience of millions, was really challenging. Rolf Harris, the crew and production team were fantastic to work with. One soon realized it wasn’t all about painting, it was ultimately entertainment, especially after the 4th take of me rinsing me brushes when all I wanted to do was work my quickly drying wet paint that was on the canvas. It was also fascinating working alongside the other two painters. There were three creative people coming at the same subject from three completely different angles, three totally different personalities that reflected so clearly in the finished paintings.
For me the most rewarding part was being able
to talk about my work in the studio visit and to actually have the opportunity
to express how and why one is where one is. It made me reflect on my
work in a way I had not done before.
This year is proving to be a great year for me so far with the broadcast
of Star Portraits with Rolf Harris, exhibiting at the Royal Society
of Portrait Painters Exhibition, the Florence Biennale in December,
other prospects for exhibitions and a lot of interest in my website
from all over the world. It’s almost as if coming out of my studio
into the great wild world for Star Portraits has allowed the great wild
world to come to me !
Reproduced with permission from Art of England magazine.