My recent collection of work, from my solo show 'Within, Without', is made up of small-scale abstract paintings and prints based on the twin themes of identity and a sense of place. The images are developed from memories and photographs of pivotal places in my life such as the riverbank where I sat as a teenager and plotted my escape from small town life - only to return twenty years later.
This entails distilling landscapes and urban spaces to exact colours, marks and compostions until they work both as abstract landscapes and self portraits and, equally, in terms of form.
As with music, you may not necessarily decipher the precise origins of a work but nonetheless absorb the tone, mood or dynamic and bring your own narratives and interpretation to it. In a sense, without the viewer the paintings are not complete.
Previously, I worked as a lecturer, and as a project and training co-ordinator for an independent arts/disability/equality development agency.
I'm currently a member of Arts Council England's Independent Disability Advisory Group and, after a summer break with my children, am exploring 3 new seams of work:
1. Drawing/painting on a human scale, using the natural movements of the body. This may involve pen and ink and include the words/language people use about their bodies. I would be interested to work with other arts practitioners (particularly dancers) & project participants including other disabled people.
2. Larger scale paintings based on environments that are incompatible with sustaining life - such as the volcanic 'Fire Mountains' where mineral deposits create an ever shifting colourscape.
3. Portraiture/Character. This continues the theme of 'Aspects of the Novel'. Alongside the 'Sense of Place' body of work, I've been experimenting with visual responses to 'Character'.
Feel free to email me with your informal enquiry - phylippanall@tiscali.co.uk
Limited edtiion fine art prints retail at £75 framed(£60 unframed). Original paintings from £195 - £395, framed or on box canvas.
Interested in seeing more? I'm researching the best way to develop an online gallery. In the meantime, please just email me to arrange to see a range of my work, which I'll bring to you with absolutely no obligation whatsoever to buy or exhibit. Alternatively, I can send you a cd of images of my work.
10% of sale price of all work goes to mary's meals - a simple solution to world hunger that works. See www.justgiving.com/pipandmuir
