'Lived in' Exhibition April

Music and painting titles.

Lately, I’ve been really enjoying naming work after song titles or lyrics…its not necessarily going to become a permanent habit, but for now I really love the way connecting a painting to a song can enrich the whole experience for me.

It's been the way with a few paintings that I’ll be working on it, knowing roughly what I want to say in the particular concept but not really being able to verbalise much….when I’ve ether listened to a song or a song has popped into my head and a light bulb has gone on….like “ah that’s what I was trying to say….you took the words right out of my mouth”, from there on in that song has become a sort of theme tune to the painting.

With ‘More than this’

The title comes from a Peter Gabriel song

This is a favourite of mine…although the song itself doesn’t really speak about the subject matter of my painting, I felt the title summed it up nicely.

‘Precious Things’

You’ve just gotta love a bit of Tori!

Admittedly, I’m not always sure I know quite what she’s getting at but I do love her delivery!

Maybe I’ve got the complete wrong end of the stick but to me 'Precious Things' talks a lot about how hard it can be being a girl, growing up and stepping into womanhood in the world we live in….

In my painting, I was very much thinking about this and about how we parent our daughters.

‘Gold Dust’

Another Tori!

This song is just so beautiful.

Memories of our own childhood mixed with that of our children, trying desperately to hold onto them.

The line that sums it up so beautifully for me is.

“How did it go so fast? We’ll say as we are looking back and then we’ll understand we held Gold Dust in our hands."

Pure Imagination

Following on from my last blog, here is the second painting of my lovely friend Chiara.

Finishing this painting has been hard, I think in some ways I didn’t want the experience to end.

I’m not going to say much…I don’t feel like I can.

I’d just like to say a little about the title.

It was inspired by something Chiara’s boyfriend, Charlie, said about her and the impact she had on his world.

Its comes from the song ‘Pure Imagination’ from the film Willy Wonker and the Chocolate factory.

While painting this, his words and this song have often been stuck in my head.

As often the way, the painting took on a life of its own and Chiara became very much a Gene Wilder/Willy Wonker kind of character.

To me it feels as though she is intensely staring out from the painting, inviting you to share in her magical world with her.

I feel so blessed that I took her up on that offer as many of us did.