ECHO INSIDE THE SHELL

Did you, as a child, place shells to your ear to listen for the sound of the sea? I remember doing this. Having been brought up in the Midlands in the UK, I could not have been further from the coast, and I craved being by the sea. I remember placing a shell to my ear, listening intensely and imagining the sea, wind, rocks and the rich colours of shells; the rockpools, sand and wisps of clouds across summer skies; the call of seabirds and the salty air. This abstract painting aims to capture all of that; depicting the shapes, colours and forms of my memories, the abstract dreamworld that I inhabited as a child and a child’s yearning to be in Cornwall.

I have used a combination of acrylic paint, mixes of cerulean blue, burnt ochre, phthalo turquoise and magenta, as well as titanium white and mars black. The paint has been applied using different sized brushes and a silicon wedge. I have also applied deep intense patches of charcoal, as well as soft pastel lines and smudges to add a different texture and intensity. This painting is built up of layers which have been applied, removed and scratched into.