Beaches

The sea, rocks and waves have always been important as I was brought up near to the beach, and went there most days to explore and walk the dog. When you have the sea as a constant yet ever changing presence in your life, living inland means that you feel something is missing.

The sea and the movement of the tides is comforting, and helps you navigate changes in your life. The space of the beach is that uninhabited space where anything is possible. The rocks and pools are eroded and slowly changed by this salty liquid element that shapes it, and settles in it, wherever it can. The red sandstone of St. Bees Rocks  were, and still are, a motif that means ‘home’ more than anything else. I have revisited my village several times over the last few years, and the painting of the rocks and pools evolved from these trips and the drawings made there. I made a small study from the arch round the door of St.Bees priory as well, as it is made from the same crystalline red sandstone, and features a worn and rippling surface that moves across the dressed stones with eroded barely decipherable medieval carvings. History lives within these stones.

Boggle Hole rock pool near Robin Hood’s bay in Yorkshire provided another source that became a painting.The rocks here are different again. Some in the rock pools I found were an acid yellow, which felt like treasure nestling in this mini-world that was the rock pool. Trusting to nature, and the notion that a motif or experience will always speak to you that it means to become a painting is vital in this process.