Above 'Portballintrae' acrylic, 21x21cm
Right 'The Field, no.2' acrylic 21x30cm
These are early pieces from my next body of work .
Marcel Proust in ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’ (translates to ‘In Search of Lost Time’ or ‘Remembrance of Things Past’) wrote that when we give our memory an order to bring back a fragment of our past it can only suggest the factual data or the skeleton; but the original flavour of the scene will be left behind. In his work he refers to ‘inner time’, the emotions triggered by the memory of an actual thing - in his case a little madeleine cake.
My search begins with the rape seed field at the bottom of my childhood garden and from there the patchy memories lead from one to another, from places, to events, to people, possessions even foods. The paintings are reactions to the memories.
' RUNKERRY' acrylic 30x21cm
'Taken by the Joy', acrylic, 21x30cm
'The Field' , acrylic, 21x30cm
Remembering being at home with my Mother, listening to the radio and eating lunch. Chicken Soup, Egg in a cup, Hot Chocolate -comfort food associated with a warm back room and Mummy standing ironing while I dunked my crusts (still do) and 'Listen with Mother' and ‘Workers playtime’ with on the boxy leatherette covered radio. The weather perpetually wild and windy and wet against the condensated window pane, I remember the colours, textures and materials of the curtains, the scratchy moquette seats, the little cupboard made by my Dad from chipboard covered in ‘Sputnik’ patterned fablon!
'The Dress' I am undecided at this stage whether to accompany the works with explanitory text, as I said this is a embyronic project which will probably not be completed and shown until the later half of next year. This painting is about the lasting impression of the feel of the exotic crisp chiffon fabric of my sister's very glamorous doll. I meanwhile had a somewhat plainner creature called 'Rosebud' who wore a hand knitted red cardigan (what we called Lumber jackets back in those days) and very little else.
