My most recent painting, shown below, is another mixed-media on paper (approx 55x44cm), titled ‘Falling back to earth’, but one which took me rather by surprise. I’m conscious that most of my work still has discernible land/sky horizons, and while I’ve enjoyed producing them, for a long time I’ve wanted to allow the work to become more abstract, though still influenced by my experience of the landscape.
Then this one happened, seemingly out of the blue, though of course that is too simplistic. I know this will be a culmination of what I’ve been painting over the past months/years – all the ‘successes’ and ‘failures’, but it feels completely subconscious.
Falling back to earth. © Mari French 2016
(See some of my recent work here).
I’ve also used a new blue-grey here too from Amsterdam acrylics, which combines with the red and the pink quite satisfactorily. And, crucially, I’ve stopped myself overworking the piece!
These occasional surprises are one of the joys of experimental painting for me.
Falling back to earth (framed). © Mari French 2016
Mari French RI : contemporary artworks 
That sense of something coming ‘out of the blue’ that always catches us by surprise, although of course it is always the reslut of previous drawings or capturing of images. We don’t give oursleves enough credit!
Thanks for your comment Alice. Glad you enjoyed the post.
very very lovely! fabulous use of white space! 🙂 cheers, Debi
Thank you Debi!
my pleasure !
What if there was even more space, white maybe but even a tinted ‘ground’, around the marked areas? It seems like a significant threshold crossed, like a different medium, and maybe closer to drawing, that exciting edge that defies definitions and leaves us space to question, blanks left for us to find our own meanings. Always enjoy your work, made, but especially love that you keep pushing your processes, how you get there, your reflexions, responses to previous work. I’m beginning to realise that Process, not just the physical doing, but that whch goes unseen in head and heart, and the conversation we have with the work in progress, is where the real juice is, and will shine through in the final work. Like your blog, always provokes thought.
Hi Phil, what a great response to my post! You’re right about crossing a threshold, I was saying recently that I felt as though I was approaching the brow of a hill in my work (in the process of taking it from semi-abstract landscape to an abstract result, although still with landscape as the taking off point) and I was pushing to get over the top as it were. Mind you, it’s a bit like sand dunes – you get to the top of one and beyond it are many more! But then it would be boring if it was downhill from here ha ha! I like your observation about Process – it powers my work, I’m a great believer in it.
Thanks for your insightful comment, I should get you to write my artist statements!
Love the way the pink line dances through this Mari – and yes, it is wonderful when something just comes through, almost of its own volition – magical. There’s a lovely tumbling feeling in this piece.
Thanks Elaine. I’m really excited by this development as you can probably tell by the post. It did feel like the lines were dancing into position – as opposed to what often happens, being frogmarched into place! lol! I only hope I can get it to happen again!
Wonderful! It has a sense of movement from left to right. Love it.
Thanks so much Michael, for a great comment 🙂