Other contemporary artists that I really like , or who have influenced my work. Go and have a look at their work:

Howard Hodgkin-British /painter (1932-2017) I have been in love with Howard Hodgkin’s paintings and prints since I first came across one of his paintings, as a teenager, on the cover of a book of Susan Sontag’s short stories in a second hand bookshop in Petersfield, in the 1960s. He does not describe himself as an abstract painter, but rather, says that his paintings are ‘representational of emotion’. I love his love of colour and the obvious delight in the physicality and materiality of paint that is apparent in his brush strokes.

Barbara Rae -Scottish contemporary abstract painter. Barbara Rae’s prints and paintings (she segues between the two with equanimity) are vibrantly and sharply and synthetically colourful. She refuses the term ‘landscape’ to describe her work, but , nonetheless, her work is informed by her environments, whether those of her native Scotland; Spain or, recently, the arctic.

Sonia Boyce- contemporary British artist I encountered Sonia Boyce first at a Hayward gallery (London, Southbank) exhibition ‘the other story’ showcasing the work of black British artists, in 1989-90. Sonia’s work stood out in this stand out exhibition, and I was particularly inspired by her use of more ‘domestic’ and ‘small’ art materials like coloured pencils, to create large scale domestic scenes, such as ‘big women talking’. I was struck by her detailed treatment of domestic features/cultural markers , such as living room wallpaper. This work very much influenced the handling of identifying artefacts in my ‘Sussex childhood’ series.

Anita Taylor - contemporary British artist Anita Taylor is a champion (perhaps the Champion) of drawing in the UK and a founder of the Trinity Buoy wharf (formerly Jerwood) drawing prize. She herself makes monumental and compelling self portraits, in charcoal and graphite on thick paper. These self portraits look at each other, and us, from gallery walls, like huge contemporary Easter island statues. These drawings make me wonder what it means to be human and make art, in the 21st century, and whether we should all give up all forms of art-making other than portraying ourselves and each other.

Albert Irvin-British abstract expressionist (1922-2015) Albert Irvin’s prints are gloriously colourful and playful. I have one on my living room wall. His use and juxtaposition of multiple colours in his later, larger paintings is mesmerising. He was inspired by the American abstract expressionists, when they exhibited in the UK in the 1950s, but I think he knocks most of them ‘into a cocked hat’.

Marcia Myers - American fresco painter (1949-2008) Myer’s work caught my attention because of her scholarly approach to the Etruscan frescoes that inform her work, right down to her detailed pursuit of suitable contemporary pigments and waxes. Myers work, notably her engagement with ancient art and delight in the battered and timeworn, weathered appearance of ancient artefacts, has informed much of my work. In particular my recent quest for sustainable, locally sourced materials.

Rebecca Crowell- American contemporary painter My interest in Crowell’s work follows on from Myers work (above) since Crowell uses contemporary versions of the materials outlined above (i.e. oil and cold wax), not for frescoes but for minimalist contemporary abstract landscape-informed paintings. Rebecca Crowell is the acknowledged modern ‘mistress’ of contemporary work with oil and cold wax: (wax, oil and pigment being the oldest recorded form of painting medium) - these are the media I have taken up since my desire for sustainability drew me away from exclusively bright modernist acrylic colours.

Anna Somerville- Scottish contemporary painter Anna Somerville’s landscapes are fresh, vibrant and colourful , contemporary depictions: particularly her ‘neonscapes’. She is represented by the & gallery, a small gallery on Dundas street which is a favourite Edinburgh haunt of mine. I particularly like the ‘splashy’ fluidity of her work, which has definitely influenced my ‘scapes’.

Janise Yntema- contemporary American painter Janice Yntema blurs the boundaries between photography and painting. This is a blurring I am working up to in my own work, but so far have only taken tentative steps towards. I am especially drawn to Yntema’s large diptych encaustic paintings, which often blend and blur photographic material beneath misty layers of coloured wax.

Amanda Ansell- contemporary British painter I came across Amanda Ansell’s work at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 2018. The fresh (seeming) simplicity and boldness of her brush strokes blew everybody else out of the room, I am drawn to her bold brush strokes (reminiscent of Hodgkin (above) and Lawlor (below) and her use of a distilled, monochromatic, seemingly simple palette of colours to great effect. There is an otherworldly (almost sci-fi) quality to her paintings.

Richard Whadcock - contemporary British painter. Richard Whadcock is the only painter I have actually found on instagram, as opposed to have come across elsewhere in the world, and then followed up their instagram feed. Like Yntema (above) his landscapes instil a kind of ethereal silence in me - they are informed by the Sussex downlands where I spent my childhood, but the downs are viewed indirectly; through a mist; veiled; as if from a distance.

Iain Biggs- contemporary British artist and scholar Iain Biggs is a local (Bristol) scholar, and artist, with whom I share an interest in narratives; in the mapping of spectral traces in the landscapes; and in the ecologies of space and place in relation to people and non-humans alike. Iain’s practice as a painter includes elements of cartography; of writing and of photography. He has been a foundational member of many scholarly grouping, linking practicing artists with research conducted in the academy.

Erin Lawlor- contemporary British painter Erin Lawlor’s work moves across the surfaces of her canvases (she works wet on wet in oil paint) as if the paint is dancing. Her colours, (informed by a background in European art history), evoke the old masters, and her brush strokes (similarly to Hodgkin and Ansell, above) evoke movement and are almost performative in quality and texture. In my own work I move cold wax and oil paint around surfaces with a series of squeegees, rather than with a huge brush, but the sense of life and movement that Lawlor’s work radiates is the kind of movement and liveliness that I too, seek to evoke.

Barbara Nicholls. British painter (Mostly in watercolours) Barbara Nicholls paints monumental watercolours on heavy papers and is interested in dilutions and dispersals of pigment and sediment in water. She has completed residencies with the paint production company ‘Winsor and newton’ and is very interested in the chemical, as well as aesthetic properties of different colours and pigments in water. My work on khadi papers is hugely inspired and informed by Nicholls’ work.

Andrew Smith - contemporary painter in Wales (Harlech), (mostly in Acrylics). Andrew Smith’s vibrant use of colour in both domestic and public art s compelling. Although not from Wales, he too has chosen to live and work along the Welsh coast, and works in a contemporary, increasingly abstract way. My use of colour is often inspired by Smith’s work.

Fred Ingrams- Contemporary British painter from Norfolk, is obsessed with the fens and the flow country: his local landscapes.There is a a glorious and almost neon sense of colour to his abstract (ish) landscapes.

Natalie Chapman is a contemporary Welsh painter who paints portraits, often of herself or her own family (she comes from a family of painters).I came across her work in the West Wales workshop, just outside Fishguard. Her work is not at all like mine, apart from her obvious love of startling and garish colour.

Zoe Taylor: a contemporary British landscape painter whose work does not follow the landscapes she immerses herself in too literally. I love her use of light and organic colour. She uses all her materials, including the raw substrates, as surfaces within her paintings. She mixes inks and paints, as do I.