Kelly Washbourne
“Painting is meditative. I liken it to the moment when you’re underwater and swimming towards the surface – a surface that identifies itself by the light that breaks through. In the same way that reaching the surface means you’re surviving, the light within the painting maintains the equilibrium”
Preferred Light: Bright Sunlight
Kelly’s oil paintings layer colour on colour in a rhythm that unfolds slowly to the completed piece. Through the process of layering, she is constantly letting the surface below imply greater depths and tones. The light and the dark contrast to create constantly changing focal points within the abstract whole.
Even in the darkest of paintings Kelly creates an uplifting quality as light is implied by ways of comparison to the layers of colour. Taking months to complete, each canvas represents its own journey as paint is layered and balanced to create exquisite colour relationships, provoking both thought and emotion. The series of new works selected for this show imply landscape within the complex layers and textures.
Decade
Forest
Apres
About
Kelly studied Fine Art at Falmouth University. She has been exhibiting since 2003 in the UK, New York, LA, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Singapore. She lives and works in Hook Norton, Oxfordshire.
Kelly finds her inspiration in the freedom, bravery and liberty of The New York School artists. She draws reference from the Expressionists of the 1940s and 50s such as Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Helen Frankenthaler, as well as Gillian Ayres and Peter Lanyon.
