Having majored in printmaking I loved the rich blacks, sooty greys and velvety lines characteristic of the technique of etching.
Many of these earlier works consisted of textures from the layering of lace and materials using a soft ground technique, however I began to
wish to simplify my images - paring them down to a clean, crisp edge feel. With a ballet by Martha Graham, the great American dancer and modern dance choreographer, I found a wonderful feast of essence and simplicity. The dancer’s body wrapped in a tube of jersey cloth - very powerful, radiating a controlled energy which inspired my suite of prints entitled "Homage to Martha Graham". From this body of work I began to use the monotype. After seeing the Cirque du Soleil I used the monotype, combining it with collage, to help me to develop other spatial tensions.
Painting is my major interest now and my love of collage has always permeated my work. The gradual unfolding of patterns and the idea of something that is simultaneously static and in flux, brush strokes against applied stencil areas, hard against organic. Snatches of textural impressions opening windows beneath and beyond the surface. Like collage interesting pictorial relationships can develop. A play between concealment and revelation, East and West, through the abstract language of paint.