The term Shinrin-yoku was coined by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries in 1982, and can be defined as making contact with and taking in the atmosphere of the forest.
For me it is a recreational trip to the forest for relaxation and well-being; forest bathing.
These works are my foray into figurative landscape, a series I started in 2021 lockdown era, with more time to exploreand muse on my local forest (sans-tourists). Refreshing myself from the routines of work and an overly digital life, I needed to find that connection to nature, to breathe the life back into my spirit.
This series is about immersion, with a figure almost hidden in the foliage, sitting in relaxed postures, but deliberately looking away from the viewer. She relishes those private days, to hide, reconnect and find her centre, retracting into the forest.
I really enjoy landscape painting as I can be as abstract and loose as I want, using a quick succession of marks to build up canopies, and vibrant washes of colour to express emotional release. Art making is immersive, immediate and I often resolve work in a single session, allow the purity of the creative process to emerge. Many compositions are similar to explore a variety ways to work with the subject, try out new colourways or different ideas to resolve the final work.
My work uses colour to express emotion as much as the subject is about experience of place. I call myself a forest fauvist, an artist who continues to lose and find herself in her art and in nature.
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