Jemma Powell

At the moment I am obsessed with painting the night - when you struggle to see, it’s a sort of blackness which, when you look really hard, translates to dark shades of green and blue… with warm dots of light coming from houses or street lamps.

I love painting all seasons - I like the challenge of the change - it forces me to try new things and not get stuck in my ways. I also like when outside reflects my mood. When I feel down and it’s hot and sunny I don’t tend to paint. But if I’m in a great mood and it’s beautiful weather then I’m straight into the flow much easier. After my recent solo show, I had a huge sense of anticlimax and numbness - I felt low and decided to embrace the colours I was feeling internally - black, dark shades of blue and green. And what came out were night-time cityscapes. I started with the darks and left cracks of canvas for the light. I think in a way, and very subconsciously, I was trying to find the light again… to lift myself up…to let the light through - it felt very cathartic.

Mornings are my favourite - the best is slipping from sleep into painting - my painting seems to flow out easier without too much thought. I am more instinctive when I paint.

I would say I work by instinct but if I think about it and try to break it down I guess I’m trying to think about the cool and warm colours... And how the light falls upon the objects it hits.

I see it as part of one whole. Everything is relative in painting. I’m interested in how one colour can affect the other - how they talk to each other. It’s exciting, when there is absence of light it forces you to really look, and the small amount of light there is suddenly very prominent.

Monet…Sorella… and I adore Van Gogh’s night time paintings.

My studio is much darker than I’d like it to be. It forces me to be more instinctive and listen to the paint. It makes me be bolder and use other tools - like the energy of applying a mark and really just going for it . I guess this extends into everyday living - in creativity my key to unlocking things is a certain amount of thought but my real key is just doing it- going for it … by thinking about light in terms of my paintings it encourages me to notice life in detail. To bring me firmly into the now and to stay present - this then feeds back into my practice.