Upstairs at the Whitechapel Gallery on Saturdays in the early nineteen sixties I was one of twenty or so teenagers given the studio space to work in any artistic medium we chose – in my case, to paint.
I was offered a place at the then celebrated Hornsey Art School but, as this coincided with becoming a teenage mother, didn’t take it up.
I painted nothing for more than thirty years until, at forty eight, I started the slow and difficult process of learning to paint all over again.
I was lucky – I had friends and a family who encouraged and backed me – I worked hard, in watercolour and in oil, to regain a long dormant ability and to develop my own way of seeing. I worked alone, I did consider classes, but, even though my paintings sold almost from the start, I lacked the necessary faith in my own talent to paint in a group.
For a long time, I trod a cautious path; my watercolour still life and plant studies were simple and almost photographic – in oils, I used small canvasses while I struggled to master technique. I sat at my fifteenth floor kitchen window and painted skyscapes of the city around me.
Nearly fifteen years on, I still paint alone in my kitchen, with increasing discomfort as my canvasses get ever bigger, but also with increasing confidence and clarity.
I don’t think I will ever stop striving in my work to reflect my London.
2002 - Rosemary Branch Theatre Pub Open Exhibition
2003 – Finalist, Workers Beer ‘Art for London’ Open Competition
2004 – Abney Hall Group Show
2005 - Private Solo Show
2006 – ‘Grassy Arts’ London Fields Group Show
2007 - Private Solo Show
2009 – Bootstrap Company Print House Solo Show
2009 - 100Sqft Group Show Hackney
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