Into Spring

Studio shelves Jan 2021

Over the winter months, I have been busy preparing and moving into my new studio. It is a much larger, brighter space and it’s an absolute joy to be settled into working there at last. So now that the days are gradually lengthening again and the sunlight slowly reappearing to open flowers and re-green trees, painting has once more begun to fill my days.
As for all artists, my exhibitions were very perturbed by lockdown through most of 2020, with work, which had been selected for the Society of Graphic Fine Art annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London, and for the Salon d’Automne des Champs Elysees in Paris never seeing the light of day. Though I am happy to say that the 2020 Salon d’Automne finally emerged as an online exhibition in January, and so can now be viewed at: https://www.salon-automne.com/catalogue-2020
My most recent finished work is a study of my youngest daughter in mixed media on a poplar panel (Lulu-Rose: Une Etude), which is the preparatory painting for a much larger, half-length portrait. She is currently studying overseas, and because the pandemic has prevented us from seeing each other over the past year, the portrait is based upon work done during a preliminary sitting with her in France last spring. Sadly, we have not been able to see each other since that day, so working on this portrait while under lockdown has helped to keep my daughter close through this difficult period.