Gail Astbury

My painterly ideas evolve through contact with other; respect for past and present artists; my immediate surroundings and cultural debate. My paintings take visual inspiration from life, photography, films, art history, and current affairs. Although built from observed realities and lived experiences, the paintings become fictional spaces where moments are reinvented. They are made above all from a spirit of adventure and discovery. In terms of methods and materials, I am interested in every artistic development from classical to modern to contemporary. Oil paints allow me time for reworking and longer careful consideration whereas watercolours allow for quick thinking, transparency and daring. My work engages with politics in the sense that I am a figurative artist, aware of the socio economic and cultural references that visual imagery conveys. Through trial-and-error methods of cropping, colour reduction and rearranging, my works seek to reflect our current uncertain times. I am not afraid to delve into psychological states, those that arise from the subjective realms of mood, sensation, and memory. Above all I make artworks for the drama and pleasure of revisiting experiences and exploring both my conscious and subconscious states of body and mind.