If one of them has found you, you already know something words can't quite catch up to. 

That's not a coincidence. That's just how this works.

I used to paint what I could see

 

I've painted since I was old enough to hold a brush.

As a child, I'd stare out the car window on long drives, working out in m head how I'd mix each colour, how I'd get the right light — painting the world as accurately as I could.
For many years after that, I continued to paint what I could see.

 

The Painting I didn't recognise

 

It was only when a coach I was working with commissioned a painting and asked me to work from intuition alone that my way of creating work changed.

Rather than copying a photo or something from life, I found myself in a deeply uncomfortable situation — I didn't know how to begin without something to copy.
But partway through, my hands started shaping something I didn't recognise: strange, unfamiliar green forms that didn't resemble any plant I'd seen.
As the painting developed, I finally realised what those forms were — I'd painted seaweed of a kind I'd never actually observed.

Other elements took form in this painting that I hadn't intentionally decided to paint. These elements simply arrived through my hands and told a story only the coach understood when I presented the painting to her.


This approach is now a big part of my painting practice. 

I think of my paintings as conversations — not just with the world in front of me, but with something beyond it too, of which I've stopped trying to explain.

I don't choose my subjects so much as receive them. Whatever the image — a creature, a landscape, a moment of light — tends to arrive from a place of stillness where the breath slows down and the heart beats at a steady rhythmic pace in a meditative state of sorts.
I paint from that state, and I believe an element of this travels with the work, whatever form the image happens to take.

When you know it's yours

I still don't always know what the meaning is to something I have painted, but that's OK — my responsibility is to be the conduit for whatever is wanting to come into existence, not to be the interpreter.
That part belongs to you.

If a painting has stopped you, or stayed with you, or shown you something you can't quite explain — that's not a coincidence. 
It's yours.

Warmly, Jill