I’ve been going to the CamCreatives free monthly meetup since it started over 15 years ago by my dear friend and ex-colleague Paul Smith. CamCreatives is a vibrant and inclusive community bringing together diverse interests across design, arts, media, literature, publishing, photography, multimedia, performing arts, education and culture.
In February 2025 CamCreatives were given a shop for a week in Cambridge Grand Arcade to showcase the talent from the group – it has 4500 artist members, so choosing what went in was a challenge! The Artist Showcase was called by many ‘a mini RA Summer Exhibition’, because Cambridgeshire has a phenomenal amount of talent.
I was over the moon to have my ‘o-Hara‘ painting in the show, which I now offer as a Giclee print. It’s a conscious swirl of scarlet, reds and pinks – named after Scarlett O’Hara from the movie ‘Gone with the wind’, because Scarlett channels female passion, defiance and vulnerability. The sweeping gestures in crimson and magenta evoke intensity – of being both wounded and unbreakable, driven by survival yet haunted by desire. The darkened strokes suggest the weight of loss and pride, while the luminous pinks cut through with resilience, echoing a refusal to be defeated. O-Hara is not a portrait but an atmosphere — a storm of willpower, longing, and the relentless flame of every woman who embodies both fragility and ferocity. There’s a little bit of o-Hara in all of us.
I was interviewed as part of the talking about my painting on Cambridge 105 and where ‘o-Hara’ was being exhibited – find me at about 41 mins in!
Like ‘Horizons’, ‘Colourama’s‘ are always about the juxtaposition of colours – either in the same family, opposites or complementary. How they look together and what happens when they meet, and what happens when the canvas is left bare – how the texture of the canvas makes it’s own little conversation in the painting. They are intuitive paintings, reflecting how I was feeling, both in colour and energy. Some are inspired by something in the real world, but mostly they are not.
They usually have a roundness and overlays. I practise the moves before paint goes onto the canvas and I often ‘mix’ the colours on the canvas, dropping on colours, moving them around with squeegees, silicon brushes and hake brushes. My intent in my painting is for them to resonate with you and for you to join me in the feeling.
I’m a big fan of Craigie Aitchison, David Hockney, Donald Hamilton Fraser, Howard Hodgkin, Rothko, Barbara Hepworth and Barbara Rae and hope I am channelling those artists, who for me, connect so well with us.
Colourama are a series of acrylic paintings on various size canvas boards and paper playing with colour.
Colourama is a theme I keep coming back to.
Horizons acrylic paintings are always about the juxtaposition of colours. How they look together and what happens when they meet, and what happens when the canvas is left bare.
I’ve called them ‘Horizon’ because they are a bit like a landscape – where sky and land or sea meet, they aren’t real landscapes, but they influenced by real skies, especially sunsets and how there are a myriad of colours to be found in them. Skies are an endless fascination to me as they are rarely the same, there are a year of skies in the #treetwoproject.
I work on these at different sizes depending on my mood. And some are a vehicle for specific colour experiments, for instance Horizons 12, 13 and 14 all investigate how a grey made from the signature colour (i.e. orange) plus black and white looks so different when it meets and is laid over the signature colour, as does the black in the bottom section.
Horizons – a series of acrylic paintings on various size canvas boards and paper playing with colour.
Horizons is a theme I keep coming back to.
What does falling feel like – can I create a painting that gives you the sensation of falling. Does falling start to feel like rising? Does colour change the feeling? This was the thinking behind this series of paintings.
I started with a block, oblong, like a brick. In the series they are placed in roughly the same position on the canvas and at about the same size but at slightly different angles and with the paint moved differently around each one.
The first in this series of ‘Falling’ I was also playing with grey on orange and how the grey changed to a lilac hue when skimmed over orange – something that I noticed in Horizon 13. This is the most worked of the series. I continued to use the same structure, oblong mid right at an angle, but now using a single colour palette – each different colour bringing a different mood and urgency.
All the series of acrylic paintings are at first painted in a single session to bring the energy, and then refined further after the paint has dried.
A series of acrylic paintings on 20 x 16 inch canvas board on the theme of falling.
