Falling higher, wild iris series 4, acrylic, pencil & marker on fabriano 200gm paper, April 2020, 55x60cm, £395

I have proud wild iris’s around the studio and so embarked on a new acrylic series on paper, still trying to get a sense of the landscape that surrounds me. Working on movement and flow, stillness yet fluidity, the play on light flickering through the leaves or the transparancy of the delicate petals, the form of the flowers are so embodying, the curves and containers, the fuzzy beards, hafts & falls, trying to capture the droops and crests, sweeping, dissolving nature. These flowers hold hope and the word iris originates from the greek for rainbow, which has been a true symbol throughout this world crisis.

I am still working in a layering process but the acrylic paints allows for swathes of colour to be loaded on the brush, the layers give a sense of changing moods or opportunities to vary the mark making, sometimes loose, tenuous, other times with deliberate gusto, freeing, spontaneous but also rooted in the natural shapes. the layering too is a way to break down the visual plane, seperate the elements, that are independent but then merge, conflict, soothe, ease, melt into togetherness. There is great energy in creating.