SKY FORM COLLECTION

LAND FORM COLLECTION

MILL SERIES

Kirsty’s expressive abstract paintings evoke the drama of the British landscape, stormy wild skies, sun bursting through, scudding clouds and windswept beaches. Her work is rooted in traditional landscape painting but given a fresh, modern twist through her use of strong architectural line and negative space. She uses a limited, stylised colour-palette whether serene Rococo peaches and pinks or turbulent Baroque rusts and indigos. 

‘Themes that persist in my painting are the clean lines of Modernism, the juxtaposition between nature and the built environment and my desire to capture fleeting moments or memories of a place or time.’

In the Sky Form Series Kirsty starts by masking areas of the canvas to leave a negative space depicting an element of architecture. She then paints across the whole canvas - working intuitively from memory - using broad, flat strokes and layers of acrylic paint and oil stick. Finally she unmasks to reveal the crisp white area - altering the image, slicing unexpectedly though the skyscape, creating unusual accents and contrasts. 

When asked about the white space she explains - ‘it is part nod to my graphic design training, and part exploration of how our surroundings can block out moments of beauty. How a building interrupts a sunset or a walkway intersects a horizon. Rather than painting those buildings or features into my work I take them out leaving the viewer with a greater sense of space and calmness.’

Solo Exhibitions Include: Dook, Edinburgh; First and Last, Worthing

Group Exhibitions Include: Manchester Art Fair; Stockton Heath Gallery, Warrington; Hilde Gallery, North Berwick; Liverpool Art Fair; Saul Hay Gallery, Manchester; Pittenweem Arts Festival, Residency & exhibition; The Mill, Saint Georges de Lucenzon, France; The Other Art Fair; Kobi and Teal, Frome; Darkness, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield; Shuuki, The Old Lock Up, Derbyshire; Harvest; Tileyard, Hepworth Wakefield.

Training: BA (Hons) Design - University of Salford, PGCE Art and Design Education - Liverpool John Moores University.

Kirsty has worked with museums, galleries and design retailers around the world including The Barbican, Tate Modern, V&A and The Whitechapel Gallery.