“Creativity is a spiritual experience. A conversation between oneself and one’s soul.” (Sue Monk Kidd)

 When I go to my heart of hearts, I feel compelled to create. If I can’t paint, I write. If I couldn’t paint, or write, if I was unable to move or speak, I would still think in pictures and tell myself stories.

I have loved art, spirituality, animals and psychology most of my life. I studied psychology, theology and counselling for my degree, and painted wildlife art, so my spiritually and psychology merged, and my love of art and animals merged, the two different strands carrying on separately from each other. When I emigrated from Africa, I shifted to more surreal art, with the two finally joining together. 

I like to paint things that speak to more than just our intellectual minds, things that touch our emotions and bring hidden thoughts and feelings from our unconscious. Art speaks by evoking shared emotion between the artist and the viewer  – when you feel “Ah yes, I love that too” or “Oh I have felt that too,” then a conversation is happening. 

“Who would like some more ice” Series

I was reading an art blog which said that people stop to look for longer at paintings of citrus than other subject matter. As a passionate conservationist and wildlife painter, I found that really annoying, and it got me wondering: why citrus, apart from the appealing colours? As I mused, I thought about citrus which led to thinking of slices of lemon in a glass with ice. Ice got me thinking polar ice, and polar bears – and the concept for the “Who would like some more ice” series was born, a series aimed at making us first smile, and the remember to choose wisely as we live, because the choices we make affect all living things on our beautiful planet.