Catch up 2025
After my last post over a year ago posts ended up in the, too hard basket, as I found the new format on the Wordpress platform technical and time consuming. Finally with significant assistance from the wonderful Abby at birdhouse.digital I have transitioned to Squarespace, the dream platform. I feel the need to fill the gap with a brief catch-up before I start to post afresh.
Achievements/Exhibitions over the last year:
March 2025: Made the longlist for Jacksons International Art Prize 2025 with the following works:
Fallen Leaf, oil on canvas bonded Artefex panel 61×46cm.
I go to the Roath Park Conservatory in Winter to sketch and feel the warmth of the 24° hot house. This time I left with a dried banana leaf that fell from the tree behind my bench. I drew this leaf, in pencil, charcoal, sanguine and ink. From various angles both suspended from the ceiling and laid flat, I discovered its character as I moved through the contours, curls, spine and shredded leaf edges. I painted in oil as the leaf dehydrated and entered the realm of my imagination.
Interconnection Oil on Canvas, 120×100cm
It began with a café conversation about a 4-5000 yr old yew tree in Llangernyw North Wales and Merlin Sheldrake’s book, ‘Entangled Life’. The conversation continued over 18 months, a build-up of layers of oil paint applied in both thin glazes and thicker layers commonly mixed on the canvas, with various percentages of Liquin, Michael Harding PM1 then PM2. Brushes of various shapes, sizes and bristle were used dependent on their personality. With no final composition in mind, the start bears little resemblance to the end as I prioritised mark making over resemblance. A common thread throughout was listening to, Oyster mushroom plays synth all night long before becoming breakfast.
June 2024: Pam X Made in Roath Exhibition at G39 Cardiff. Achieved first prize judges choice with Amin:
November 2023 exhibited a selection of works at the, open studio exhibition, Fox Lane Studios, Cardiff
March 2024: Made the long list for the Jacksons international Art Prize, in the top 3% with 2 paintings
Rhythm, Oil on Canvas, 102×76cm
We move in so many ways; jostling, creeping, swaying, floating through this world on a journey through time and space, each with our own personalities and stories. My paintings begin with seemingly random marks and my collection of brushes, each holding their own personalities, become extensions of my thoughts and never cease to surprise me. The interchange of thought and action with no specific intention reflect diversity and the shifting between abstraction and representation, forming connections that speak to my experience of being in this world.
Common Ground, Oil on Canvas, 120×100cm
My fascination with plant and fungal networks reflects a metaphoric relation to my painting process. The spaces these strange life forms inhabit as they forage, trade, adapt, relocate, and remodel mirrors the ways I drag, drape, tuft, intensify and neutralise; shifting pigment as I form and reform. The result becomes a trail of paint and thoughts on our planet’s diversity, all of us seeking out space in this ever-changing world.
Studio spaces
Always working in a studio, I divided my time between 8 months in Wales at my Broadway studio Cardiff and 4 months in The Lighthouse shared space in Hamilton New Zealand.
My current paintings emerge slowly, as I never have an end composition in mind just feel my way through the process until an end point. This is the state of play with the unfinished at the moment:
100×160 oil on canvas
100×160 oil on canvas
