Studio Notes February - Works in Progress
Hello,
February has been wonderfully busy in the studio. I’ve been moving between painting, sculpture and stitching. — At the same time, I’ve been getting on with with the business side of being an artist — submissions, possibilities, conversations, future exhibitions. It’s a different energy to studio work, yet equally important. A reminder that the life of the work extends beyond its making.
Below you’ll find a selection of process images — surfaces, gestures, and moments that are still in flux.
Much of my attention lately has been on process. How ideas change once they leave the mind and enter the hands. How certain directions only reveal themselves through making. There is a constant negotiation between guiding the work and allowing it to speak back, which remains one of the most compelling aspects of practice. Some works are developing slowly, almost cautiously, while others seem to resolve themselves with unexpected ease. That contrast is always intriguing — the difference between persistence and arrival.
Some of the materials I’m using carry their own histories, drawn from my ancestors. They arrive already marked by time, usage, and memory. In the studio, they are transformed — stitched, layered, painted, or reconfigured — into contemporary forms. The past is present, not as illustration, but as a subtle force that shapes texture, tension, and surface. Ancestry becomes both a physical and intuitive companion in the work — a quiet energy that flows through process and into the final forms.
I’ve included the latest painting with close ups at the end of this letter — the point where these scattered gestures, revisions, and experiments settle into their final form.
“Hobart from (Kunanyi) Mt. Wellington. 1952 -2024”
Acrylic paint, acrylic ink, vintage postcards on braced wooden artist board.
60x46x3.5cm.
The textile sculptures are still evolving, becoming increasingly raw and textural. Tears, raw edges, stitches, and rust marks behave less like description and more like residue — traces left behind. The shape of the sculptural heart emerged on its own. I resisted it at first; accustomed to working purely abstract, it was difficult to accept something recognisably formed. I’m still not sure what it is, or where it will go — perhaps it will remain as it is, become part of a larger piece, or find a place within an installation.
As always, thank you for your continued interest in the work and for taking the time to follow these studio movements. Your quiet attention is deeply appreciated.
More on these pieces soon,
Jenny