Janet F Mayes

My work is very much based in simple mark making, drawing quickly and gesturally I find drawing to be visceral. It flows from within, combining motion with mood and emotion with being.

And this is the same process I use with my paintings. I take the initial drawings and find the curves and flows of interest within the piece and work with them or against them to abstract out and play with the form and focus of the subject. I often work in muted colours when painting, searching for movement and intensity within the abstracted image.

Yet like many I can’t stay in one state for too long and will often ricochet to working in vivid colours. Rejoicing in my love of colour theory. Finding combinations that intrigue and inspire me.  It is all the days and all of the nights. It delivers the joy of spring, it invites the languor or summer, it evokes the activity of autumn and shares the bleakness of winter. Colour speaks of mood and atmosphere, of place and purpose.

For Jung “vivid colours attract the unconscious” but for me they are so much more. Colours are not passive attractors of my attention they are food for my soul! Working viscerally with acrylics, often with a pallet knife, I let my mood, the light or just the time of day guide me. I respond with tints and tones, with hints of harmony and resonance, finding colours that coruscate, singing their delights and speaking their darknesses.