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Richard Deibenkorn- love the mark naming and colour balance

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Richard Deibenkorn- love the mark naming and colour balance

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Richard Deibenkorn- would love to trial this style

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Richard Deibenkorn- would love to trial this style

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My favorite and latest Commission based on colors from their rug. I photographed the girls on a sofa and simplified the painting leaving areas flat and some undone. This is my favorite style I am running with for now.  Moved away from collage and onto flat areas allowing the eye to rest. 

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My favorite and latest Commission based on colors from their rug. I photographed the girls on a sofa and simplified the painting leaving areas flat and some undone. This is my favorite style I am running with for now.  Moved away from collage and onto flat areas allowing the eye to rest. 

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We considered the Orangery however the hanging logistics were too tricky. It was important to us to have drinks outside and change the entry into the room to make the flow feel right.

The plan revolves around Elena's work which dictated the "flow" and everyone else needed particular areas which worked well.

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In terms of the group and what each of us bring, everyone had their role which was integral to the success of the exhibition.

Personally... I had some creative ideas about layout, lighting and photographed the headshots of the group and some of their pieces for their websites. I also documented, photographed every piece in detail at the exhibition as well as offering a basic and comprehensive lesson in photography. Showing how to do movement. See Elena above and we moved Nix's pieces changing their "feeling" . Also I've been the social media teacher.

I took the lead role occasionally if no-one had a fixed idea. Equally happy to step back. Felt like everyone in the group also danced the same dance complimenting each other so well. Sarah took on logistical roles despite being so poorly, Sue and Yanna were admin, Kate the finance coordinator, Nix and Elena graphic designers, Liz an all round and information and researcher extraordinaire.

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Clear labels with QR codes looked minimal and subtle. 

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Clear labels with QR codes looked minimal and subtle. 

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Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you’re into with the people who get you.

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Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you’re into with the people who get you.

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I realized now, days before uploading this.. that I amazingly have completed SO MANY of these since writing it in September.

I moved house in October and settled 3 teenagers. I took out a loan and got builders in January to make a basic studio. Started classes in the house in January.

Social media course midway through....

Insta Dabble Art

TikTok account set up.

Updated website- more to do

Smartest app in which I use ai interiors to place my work

Doing commissions.

Making an art collection. Offering freebies and photographed all my next sitters who all have links to the people I am aiming for/my buyer. Identified: My buyer is clear. Ibiza, style conscious, big white walls, money to spend, interiors clean and attracted to positive vibes.

Advertised on school what's app.

Dabble:

I've started teaching and made workshops "Dabble Studio".

Branded it and done some marketing Made flyers.

Got a separate business account set up.

Changed car to fit my big boards. Accounts in order. Set up a list of buyers.

In addition to this I have starting doing workshops/talks at Glion Hospitality School in Switzerland about "The Art of Communication" and "The Art of Connection".

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Choosing the Title and planning the space

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Choosing the Title and planning the space

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https://www.figma.com/proto/rVetC1xsnIg5dTcZF1DnXu/Mercurial---Website?node-id=4-2&viewport=322%2C198%2C0.47&t=OlwVSEc0ALAZz0Nq-1&scaling=scale-down&content-scaling=fixed&starting-point-node-id=4%3A2&page-id=1%3A2

After jotting our initial ideas down on paper and ticking them, I made a poll of our favourites and "Mercurial" was the favourite.

We came up with the definition and thanks to our in house designers, had a logo which complimented the theme which we all agreed on instantly. We added a link via FIGMA and QR code with info on each of our works so that we could be found with ease, conscious of not using/wasting paper. Design to look contemporary and fresh and exhibit easily and clearly navigated. This Sigma will be online forever so we can access it in the future.

We printed off a few posters and signs and discussed access and added an invite to be able to text friends and potential clients.

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Ultimately, Mercurial is about what we inherit, what we carry, and what we choose to transform. It explores the tension between damage and care, repetition and interruption, asking whether generational patterns can be understood without being perpetuated. For me, the work is rooted in resilience, self-love, acceptance, and forgiveness. The act of making it became an act of transformation in itself therefore deeply profound exercise.

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What I learnt and how I would extend my work

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What I learnt and how I would extend my work

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Part of me painted my mother freely like I didn't care, thick flabby brushstrokes, and I got her likeness within a few brushstrokes leaving me feeling content to halt the painting process. Achieving the looseness finally which was my aim. The details were in the wheelchair, bricks and verticals which I found boring, the context had to be present but I would rather leave them out. Teaching me that I enjoyed the grotesque. As I usually appreciate all things beautiful, as a knee jerk reaction away from my mother's lack of seeing beauty in anyone or anything, however in this case, I luxuriated in the process of the natural contortion. There is a Paula Rego quality to the feeling. If I were to develop the work further, I would abstract the background of my mother’s portrait like Ella Walker style, and Alex-Soul Grey, add some context to my own image,  and make it the same size, creating a greater sense of balance across the three panels. Possibly pulling in more red to make the relationship between my daughter and I more cohesive to reflect the reality. I am influenced by Wes Anderson with regards to colour ratio and the colour palette of The Rajistan School of Art. I would like to practice limited colour palettes and experiment with grotesque, loose imagery alongside the beautiful palette.

I want to work bigger and making pose and flesh the character and letting everything else go. Leaving out the detail.

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Processually, I work through varied layers of oil paint. Shifting emotional states are expressed through a stream of consciousness scratched into the surface, creating fragments of hidden text obscured beneath layers. The paintings move between scratched-back surfaces, translucent glazes, and thick, fleshy brushwork, reflecting the fluid and ever-shifting nature of what it is to be human. Clothing, particularly shared garments, becomes a key device through which continuity, inheritance, and transformation are constructed across the three generations. The triptych format is essential to the work’s meaning. It allows viewers to move between generations and read the paintings as a sequence rather than as isolated portraits.

The physical spacing between panels creates a psychological tension between closeness and separation, reinforcing the idea of inheritance as something both intimate and discordant. The physical separation from my mother’s portrait reflects the reality of our relationship whilst the colour balance across the tryptich echoes that disparity. The differing painterly styles are fragmented, reflecting the true nature of the family dynamics. The colour palette and handling of paint are both cohesive and clashing, mirroring lived experience and acknowledging the differences. The square format and repeated depiction of flesh act as visual devices that bind the triptych together.

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This work is informed by psychological and autobiographical approaches within contemporary painting, film, and psychological approaches to family dynamics.  Film such a s”The Empire of Light” directed by Sam Mendes which is an autobiography and touch on his agonizing relationship with his mother though the view of the camera lens, and we therefore become protaginists. Black Swan also raises similar theres of mother/daughter relationship. I drew from this imagery in my work.  I particularly engage with artists who position the body as a site of emotional memory, trauma, and transformation, such as Alice Neel and Nasreen Mohamedi. I am influenced by the raw psychological self-examination found in the work of Louise Bourgeois, the exploration of family relationships, memory, and vulnerability in the paintings of Marlene Dumas, and the unflinching depictions of motherhood, identity, and the female body by Paula Rego.

My practice is also shaped by feminist perspectives on motherhood, identity, and care, where the maternal is understood not as an idealised or singular experience, but as complex, embodied, and often contradictory. Through this lens, the body becomes a space where personal histories, emotional states, and social expectations intersect, allowing painting to explore the fractured, intimate, and transformative experiences of identity and belonging.

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My daughter’s portrait extends the lineage forward. She is depicted confidently wearing my mother’s dress, while shared garments appear across all three panels, collapsing generational boundaries. This visual strategy represents the transmission and transformation of identity, memory, and behaviour. Although her pose appears confident, open and independent, traces of anxiety and dissociation remain in flux, suggesting another form of embodied inheritance. The dissociation is depicted through the movement of the tube, an ever-shifting bodily state that further hints at the title Mercurial. Her flesh is painted more smoothly than ours. Her youth and health contradicting my mother’s flabby brushstrokes of her flesh. Mum’s cigarette further symbolizing toxicity. I have etched words of love under her dress hoping that it will resonate and vibrate on her person somehow.

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I looked up “mother” and definition said to “nurture and protect” and she did neither. I scrawled a letter to her in the wheelchair. Because she was cold and unmaternal, I became a regulated,  empathetic one. I am grateful to her.

The central panel, titled The Motherload, focuses on the overwhelming accumulation of inherited responsibility and emotional labour. The dress, shared with my daughter, symbolises vitality, freedom, and the liberation that comes with age—and like Alice Neel, a refusal to be constrained by the expectations of others. Its vibrant colour palette reflects the joy and self-discovery I have experienced post-divorce, choosing self-love and demonstrating that choice to my children. On the other hand, and despite the open body language, the facial expression is tense due to the emotional and physical load of being the sandwich generation that has to notice and carry it all. Both portraits are looking towards me as a pillar of support and strength. Beneath the painted surface, I embedded a written stream of consciousness. What began as an exploration of truth, of holding the the weight of motherhood, anxieties about the world, guilt about divorce, and unspoken messages to my children unexpectedly resolved into the phrase, “I forgive you, Mum.” This became a pivotal moment within the work, shifting its emotional trajectory from fear and resentment towards release and understanding. In forgiving her, I hope to release myself and, in turn, loosen the burden carried by my own children. It became a mercurial shift—a change of emotional state.

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How does emotional inheritance become embodied across generations, and can it be interrupted or reconfigured?                                                                                                                       Mother 

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How does emotional inheritance become embodied across generations, and can it be interrupted or reconfigured?                                                                                                                       Mother 

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My mother’s portrait forms the starting point of this enquiry. Her character epitomizes a mercurial nature in terms of her volatility. The work reflects how attention became centered on her needs, while her extreme narcissism is suggested through the use of reflection in the window. She appears disconnected from the family, emphasised by the vertical barriers within the composition and the separation from us created by her own reflected image stopping a flow of connection and facing everything back to herself.  Portrayed in her wheel chair, her Multiple Sclerosis is considered not only as a physical condition but also as a force or separate entity that has shaped family dynamics through her need and demands of care. The cool, almost monochromatic palette draws on the influence of Jon Currie's portraits and triptychs, with only subtle traces of colour interrupting the deathly pallor, creating a tension between vitality and decline. Her hand left unrefined and claw-like to reflect her mother’s touch.

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The overall title of the group exhibition, Mercurial, resonated deeply with my own concerns around instability, transformation, and emotional inheritance. The term describes something changeable, volatile, and constantly in flux, much like the patterns of behaviour, care, and neglect that pass between generations. Rather than simply repeating these inherited structures, I am interested in how they can be recognised, transformed, and perhaps redirected towards something more positive. Mercurial Inheritance is a triptych exploring generational trauma through the relationship between my mother, myself, and my daughter.

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Allan Ramsey Course at West Dean - Portrait in Oils from Life 

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Tryptich. Cleaned up, painted. Arranged the paintings to make "sense" to me in my family constellation. Bert Hellinger's idea of placement and the reality. positioning is everything. My mother placed on separate wall was not the plan as the image gave me a barrier but in fact the L-shape walls felt more reflective of our family dynamic.

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Paula Rego: Love the story Telling. Darkness

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Paula Rego: Love the story Telling. Darkness

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Actress  Florence Pugh . designed the commission myself, abstracted the dog and added stripes. 

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Actress  Florence Pugh . designed the commission myself, abstracted the dog and added stripes. 

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Plan to portray my mother.. epitome of mercurial personality. With layers of spirit and matter.  Considering the three generations 

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Plan to portray my mother.. epitome of mercurial personality. With layers of spirit and matter.  Considering the three generations 

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Started with Motherload. Photographed mum, captured the moment at a family gathering in which she was disconnected as usual. I took some video footage of Jazzy which summed up her disassociation and time flying and the fact that she's elegant but also a whirlwind. Irish and English connotation. Know I want to discuss the sandwich generation and generational trauma. Investigating movies, art, instagram reels about halting trauma, pulling from wisdoms about authenticity and forgiveness.

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Francesa Woodman (FORM UNFOLDING) Absence informs as much as content 

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Francesa Woodman (FORM UNFOLDING) Absence informs as much as content 

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Neon pink and pale green. Flat stripes with outline only adding movement 

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Neon pink and pale green. Flat stripes with outline only adding movement 

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Influence: Rasila, 18th Century CE, Rajistan School of Art, City Palace Museum, Rajistan

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Influence: Rasila, 18th Century CE, Rajistan School of Art, City Palace Museum, Rajistan

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I have always loved this style of art. Can see the influence now finally. Finding such joy in the flatness and colour combos

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Tarsila do Amaral, "Lake", 1928, Oil on Canvas

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Tarsila do Amaral, "Lake", 1928, Oil on Canvas

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Current work in progress .. commission. Trying to pull dog in and ball and suing stripes to bring together and maintain punch. The colour Combo is DIVINE .. wish I could lose the dog but client requirements meaning it is pushing me to think outside the box and make it work

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Current work in progress .. commission. Trying to pull dog in and ball and suing stripes to bring together and maintain punch. The colour Combo is DIVINE .. wish I could lose the dog but client requirements meaning it is pushing me to think outside the box and make it work

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love the elegance again of Anna Bernadskaya's work

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love the elegance again of Anna Bernadskaya's work

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shadows, colour pallet and proportion and composition . Florence Pugh

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shadows, colour pallet and proportion and composition . Florence Pugh

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Francesco Clemente. Portrait of Linda Evangelista 

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Francesco Clemente. Portrait of Linda Evangelista 

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Working from life. Short course with Chris Gilvan-Cartright. Learning about too much info and what to block out-  working instinctively was freeing. loved the process. 

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Working from life. Short course with Chris Gilvan-Cartright. Learning about too much info and what to block out-  working instinctively was freeing. loved the process. 

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experimenting with head ad shoulders only.. tricky with two people too. And this combo too green and not working - too cold. 

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experimenting with head ad shoulders only.. tricky with two people too. And this combo too green and not working - too cold. 

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Tabatha suggested trying something completely different and loose so I did. Loved it the process, don't love the finished work but glad I could embrace it and learnt not to be precious about a "good" part.

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Jean Cooke by her husband John Bratby  1954 and shown in Pallant House July 2025

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Jean Cooke by her husband John Bratby  1954 and shown in Pallant House July 2025

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Find this dark and vulnerable take on his wife disturbing. Presence of everyday items given as little importance as her.

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John Bratby by his wife Jean Cooke 1954 as shown in Pallant House 

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John Bratby by his wife Jean Cooke 1954 as shown in Pallant House 

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changing shapes with paper and I love this shape unfolding 

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changing shapes with paper and I love this shape unfolding 