TAHNEE LONSDALE

I paint what i think not what i see. What i paint is a reflection of me and an expression of how i view the world. Loneliness and melancholy are ever looming in my work, the lost and lone bear looking into the depths of a dark forest, a single character in a large paintscape. Although sinister at first appearance there isn’t anything to fear but fear itself. For instance, in ‘A Forest...’ it is the fear of losing oneself, like in a dream when something is not as it should be.

My initial instinct is with colour although storytelling plays a very significant role. Linking each painting with the next is a thread of narrative, a story which runs from one painting to the next. This story began as a vague notion and has grown into the driving force behind most of my paintings. Although my work has become increasingly abstract in the last 18 months, this theme of story telling has continued to be present.

Text scars my surfaces, charting a history of the work, thoughts spilling out of my head and onto the painting, often incoherent and barely visible. mainly in charcoal and easily wiped away except for a small trace as a reminder.

I refer to Basquiat, his paintings thick with text, ‘exuberantly spontaneous’. Doig’s ‘Mysterious Utopia’s’ and Diebenkorn, the large tears in his paintings which i have stolen and taken for mine.

Robot - 42cm x 29cm, Acrylic/oil stick/charcoal on wood board

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