I often work on the floor with smaller drawings as this enables me to use and incorporate crumbs from the pastels into the work, using my fingers and thumbs to smudge. This keeps me both more physically engaged and free in the process.
My intention was to create a series of works in a spontaneous, improvisational and non-judgmental way. Neuroscientists have shown that much of our decision-making is made at a pre-conscious level and I wanted to work in such a way as to minimize conscious control of the choice of colour or form and, indeed, outcome as I made each work. In this series of drawings I have expressed my feelings and memories around puberty, first love and other events at that time. They are, in that sense, self-portraits. |
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