IN AN EVERMORE
LONELY WORLD
QUESTIONS
ANSWERS
HISTORIES TO TELL
Our personal metaphorical landscape is constantly changing, yet throughout history there has been art, and this art endures with our desire to try and understand ourselves better. Whether figurative or abstract, there is a rich legacy that we cannot ignore as we move forward into the future.
My paintings include both the abstract and the figurative genre, each in dialogue and informing the other. The archetypal woman, possibly self portraits, tell stories of longing, thought, meditation, reflection, voluptuousness, sensual feeling and sensation. Contemporary elements such as mindfulness and consumerism creep into the narratives. The abstracts, in turn, can be calm or turbulent, the gestural brushstrokes commenting simultaneously on local, private or on global concerns. I have created these paintings, they have come from somewhere, and yet because there are so many sources it is difficult to pinpoint the exact provenance, emotion or feeling that eventually emanates from each canvas.
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The figures I have painted surround me in my studio. A large self-portrait ‘I Like It Like That’ stands poised to take a dip in fashionably cold water. She sports a nude thong and her Balenciaga trainers, ‘….the ones that look like socks.’ She glances round to see if the coast is clear, so that she can fully immerse herself in her daily ritual of cleansing her mind of all the busy thoughts that fill her constantly distracted mind. Another nude, ‘Ming’, stands vulnerable and pale, like a porcelain vase. She has become objectified by her subtle blue outline, posed in front of an enveloping warm human flesh coloured background which contrasts with her skin tones, inviting questions about her mood. She gazes wistfully and longingly off to one side, deep in thought. The viewer is left guessing as to where and what she is doing.
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The paintings are direct. Each composition is usually, but not always, painted in one session. The colour, ground and form can be austere, graphic or gestural. There is an energy and a celebration in wanting to communicate conscious and unconscious expression through interaction with the paint. The spontaneity and joie de vivre of the brush work describe these confident women or abstract forms, often revealing an ambiguous tension. Elements are captured rather than every detail, often naively. There is a pleasure and a compelling need to invent these beings, to give them life. In ‘Meditation’ an archetypal woman daydreams on her white sofa, the vibrant blue walls enclose her in a calm space with a hint of the outside world depicted through an open window.Painting is a constant, a specific means of expression. The paintings feel contemporary, enquiring and engaging. Going for swims, chilling with the cat, listening to records, taking selfies, keeping up with the latest trends and looking at the masters for inspiration. In Modern Landscape I am drawing together my thoughts, inspirations, references and fascinations into one story seeking coherence and meaning through paint. - Henrietta Dubrey, 2022
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