Introduction to new exhibition "O Jardim" 2008

In 2003 I graduated from Central Saint Martin’s college of Art and Design in London, having studied Fine Art. Before this I studied Art and Design at Croydon College, specialising in textile designs.
My art work has been influenced greatly in my previous working life as a health professional. My studies in textile design fuelled my fascination and experimentation with mixed media. The manipulation of materials to create unusual effects continues to surprise and inspire me. In the process of mixing techniques and media in drawing, painting and collage the art work for this exhibition has mostly transformed into abstraction, though always referenced from life.
In this exhibition I return to my interest in organic forms, often with familiar, subliminal references that interconnect to earlier studies of bacteria and viruses under the microscope.
In the Botanical Gardens I have been drawn to the obscure, the discarded, the hanging roots that though half dead are alive. The paintings depict this with transformations in colour and movement. I have referred to photographic images of cut, dying tree trunks, remains of cut plants exposing unusual patterns, and the root formations that are especially familiar in the Lisbon Botanical Gardens.
Once the paintings begin, they develop by themselves and the original reference is often lost in the process. Some paintings begin decoratively, using parts of the flora – seeds, roots, grasses – that are collaged onto the canvas, while others gesture shapes and pattern. I rarely use a paintbrush and often begin an idea drawing in glue with a syringe; many of the paintings are determined by moving poured paint and glue, manipulated with my fingers.
There remains a continuing development from complex and decorative to more minimal and then back again. The references, techniques and media remain a changing source for future works.