Artist Statement

Em is an artist based in the Peak District and paint using oils and cold wax. She is inspired by the ancient landscape in which she is settled. When she paints she is responding to an emotion that has bubbled up, to both release and capture it. This can take a bit of time as she likes to build thin transparent colours in layers using silicone catalyst blades and experiment with any tools she can get her hands on from lolly sticks to carved potatoes to sponges to get texture. For it to work, she needs a strong skeleton of a colour beginning that will form the structure of the painting and can hold the amount of ‘stained glass’ she passes over the top. Sometimes she keeps it that strong but when it’s sat with her in the studio quietly keeping her company while she goes about her working day it will chat with her and just nudge her with a ‘too loud here!’ ‘too busy over there!’ ‘just warm it up in this bit’. This is the bit of the burgeoning relationship that she loves. When the painting is starting to learn to talk.