/2023
In the summer of 2023 I started exploring soft pastels, funnily enough because after moving house I found myself temporarily without a studio. Working with pastels was something I could do in the house without creating too much mess! I started with loose sketches and in the autumn began to take a more elaborate, painterly approach to my drawings. I prefer drawing on darker paper in a technique similar to painting in oils where I work from dark to light and from thin to thicker streaks.
My latest drawings often accompany stories I write, addressing the universal fabric of human existence: ever-changing time, love, land the loss that inevitably follows. An ancient, solitary figure recurs in my drawings, visiting places of his past, hoping to encounter anything that might feel familiar. The abandoned places in which this figure finds himself, material memories and metaphors of the human soul, emphasise the transience of existence.
