Handwriting Movement
My handwriting as an artist is not one particular brushstroke or technique. It is something that has developed through years of working, and continues to change.
It can appear in a line, a scraped surface, the pressure of a spatula or a mark that interrupts a layer of paint. I work with different materials and tools, but certain traces remain recognisably mine.
THE TOOL DOES NOT LEAD
I use brushes, spatulas, charcoal and sometimes less conventional tools such as feathers. Each behaves differently.
A brush can give resistance or softness. A spatula creates pressure and edge. A feather behaves less predictably. It can interrupt a surface or create a mark I could not have made in quite the same way with a brush.
I like those differences. They allow something unexpected to enter the work. But the tool itself does not determine the image. However much the materials change, the way I use them remains connected to my own movements and decisions. The tool does not lead. My handwriting does.
A RECOGNISABLE TRACE
I do not work in exactly the same way from one series to another. Oil, acrylic, charcoal, paper, canvas and mixed media each ask for something different.
Still, I recognise my own hand across the work.
Sometimes it is in the speed of a line. Sometimes in the contrast between a rough mark and a quieter surface, or in something that has been covered and remains partly visible underneath.
My handwriting is not something I consciously repeat. It appears through the way I make decisions while working: where I apply pressure, where I stop, what I remove and what I allow to remain.
AN EVOLVING HANDWRITING
An artistic handwriting does not remain fixed.
New materials and techniques enter my work and change what is possible. Some marks disappear for a while and return later in another form. Working in different series also shifts the way I use colour, line, surface and gesture.
I am interested in that development. I do not want to preserve a recognisable style by repeating it. For me, the recognition lies deeper, in the way I approach the work and respond to what happens while making it.
MATERIAL AND GESTURE
Movement, pressure, resistance and the response of a surface are an important part of my wider painting practice.
READ MORE ABOUT MATERIAL AND GESTURE IN MY WORK →
Step into the work and experience it up close.
This studio note expands on the ideas described in my Artist Vision.
Read the full Artist Vision here →