Delighted to be a third-time finalist in this prestigious portrait exhibition with my entry entitled ‘Conversations with my mother’.
Oil on canvas, 2024
Artists statement: ‘How well I know these old hands. We have the same hands and feet, my mum and I. But hers are gnarled and knobbled with arthritis and her skin is translucent over bluish veins.
It is like looking at myself in the future.
Twice a week we sit in her garden and talk over a cup of tea. I notice how often we unconsciously mirror each other’s gestures.
It strikes me that in our reciprocity that this is a portrait of the two of us, as we sit in conversation, the shadows of the past ever present’
My subject is my mother, with whom I am very close. My idea in painting her was not to simply portray her physical being, but to illuminate aspects of her, viewed through the lens of our relationship.
We see our loved ones through our unique perspective. The woman I know is not necessarily the person you would experience, should you meet her. As mother and daughter we inhabit a slightly different space to other relationships. We know each other so well that there is less need to observe the usual social rules. While we chat I find my eyes running over aspects of her person that are so familiar - her always wonky hair clip, the lines of her skull, her hands which are so like my own. I am conscious how often we mirror each other in pose and gesture.
As her daughter these hands are loaded with meaning, intimacy, and history.
