Symphony : new paintings 2022 - 2024

Abstract

When I started working on this collection in 2022, I envisaged four large paintings each symbolizing a season, my idea of a visual symphony. The other works augment and develop this theme of celebrating the year in a colourful and textural way. Serenade to Dahlias is the first large canvas I painted for this collection back in autumn 2022 when these flowers were at their best. I tried to convey a sense of security, joy and companionship with this composition. Winter Kitchen was my large winter painting 122 x 152cm. Here I was celebrating the warm hub of a kitchen in the coldest and darkest of months. I played with the warm rusty pinks and burnt oranges of the copper kitchen utensils contrasting these warm colours with the cool earth greens of the tablecloth and shelves. The low but beguiling light coming from the moon through the window and the flickering candlelight are devices I have used to add to the sense of intimacy and drama. River Song is the largest painting from this collection at 152 x 182 cm and is what I call a retreat painting where I set out to create a place of peace and tranquillity of pure painterly escapism, away from all the noise and chaos of daily life. It is of a reclining female figure in a woodland setting with a babbling brook. I also set out to create a retreat painting with Summer Interlude 122 x 152 cm of a reclining female figure in an interior setting but with the same object in mind; that of taking time out to rest and contemplate the moment.

Both my daughters are my muses and I often use two female forms conversing with each other over a table and I am sure this has been inspired by years of watching them chat over a cup of tea during the years they were at home. Now they have young families of their own I feel drawn to the mother and child theme as can be seen in Bedtime Story and Autumn Kitchen.

Summer Song is an ode to Dod Proctor as she is one of my favourite painters and her painting, Girl with a parrot, was the inspiration behind my painting. Sometimes the flowers that are growing around me are so dramatic and visually stimulating that I will often do a portrait of a standalone vase of flowers. These compliment and support my figurative work like a running theme throughout this collection and help me to document the seasons as they pass. Over the last 5 years or so, I have painted a series of small flower paintings especially commissioned by the Doorway Gallery for their Christmas Show. This year they are in two collections; Flower Notes and Floral Notes painted in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

All my subject matter is a means to an end and that is to work and experiment with paint, colour and texture; always pushing the boundaries of what this medium can do. For me it’s a continuously evolving challenge and a new experience each time I start a painting.

Lucy Doyle