THE PAGES SERIES

I started painting on book pages at the end of last year.  I’d used up all my canvases and couldn’t justify buying more.  I was already using old volumes as my sketchbooks, so I tested out the paper of an old 1950s annual I had sitting on the shelf.  It took the paint beautifully, so I taped 20 pages to the wall and just haven’t looked back. In the last few months I have made almost 200 pieces of art.

As I painted these pages, all together, but each one just for itself; not really related but somehow fitting into a greater whole.  I started thinking about story stones; stones with characters and elements of a story which are used as aids for children to create their own adventures.  Each piece within the Pages Series catches a glimpse, a moment within a wider visual story. They can stand alone, or be grouped in endless combinations to give a broader narrative.

The Pages Series are bold colourful, pop art style paintings on the individual pages of aged books.  The artworks are a mixture of abstract and simplified line drawings of landscapes and everyday objects.  The works are not directly linked to the print or the illustrations on the page, but these interact with the painting, adding depth and grounding them.

I mostly paint on children’s books from the mid-twentieth century.  There is a link between the carefree colourful nature of my work and children’s literature.  The proportion of the print on the page, as well as the illustrations add weight to their composition.  I take a lot of inspiration from my children, their creativity and how they see things.  As a result my pieces reflect a lot of the intense joy and simplicity of childhood, as well as a nostalgia for my own.

The age of the pages and the delicate nature of the paper itself link to the idea of capturing an ephemeral moment.  The initial lines and drawings in these artworks are fast and momentary, to which colours are carefully chosen and added later.  The age of the pages also evokes nostalgia.