Thinking more about the subconscious process behind my art lately …

Work emerging from the studio the past two weeks appear again to be channelling my time spent studying and sketching reedbeds and pools/channels on the north Norfolk saltmarsh coast.

Initially these were experimental pieces with mixed-media (inks and acrylics etc) on watercolour board and paper. But having left them alone for a few days, then coming back and working into them with that lovely rust colour for instance, they definitely evoke reedbeds and water to me. The first one below from a close viewpoint, the second from further away.

Untitled. Mixed media on paper © Mari French 2017

But I’ve also been considering this: they’re not just about distilling what I see or feel, my work seems increasingly to recall my physical experience; the journeying and exploration of my chosen terrain. So some motifs may appear more than once and at different scales, because I see the same place/object or experience the same feeling or sensation several times as I go, turning and watching, stopping and walking back to study some more.

Having been working towards abstraction in my interpretation of the landscape over the past decade, it’s intriguing (and a bit thrilling) to get this insight into the way my own process works.

Untitled. © Mari French 2017