The Art of Isolation

Travel and exploration have always played an important role in my creative practice and like many other people my travel plans for this year have been put on hold. Welsh mountains and remote Scottish beaches have been exchanged for the farmland that surrounds my home and studio and with this, a new way of working has emerged.

Over the past few months as lockdown began and travel restrictions were put in place, I’ve been exploring my locality. These new daily influences have prompted a very different style of painting as, like many others, I’ve been forced to re-evaluate the way I work and live.

During this time, my daily dog walks with my rescue lurcher Roe have been my lifeline. I’m fortunate in that I live on the edge of a village with miles of farmland on my doorstep and the footpaths that cross this land have been an escape from the stresses of the situation that we’ve found ourselves in.

While out walking I began noticing what was in my field of vision - the patterns of the field boundaries, marked by ditches and hedges and the colours of new growth against the earth. All this information from walking the land has found its way back with me on my return to the studio.

The repetitiveness of these outings has given me the opportunity to connect with my surroundings in a way that I haven’t before and I look forward to sharing my observations about my practice with you in future posts.