Following a period of unemployment, I gathered up my courage, and held my first solo show in Four Walls in Melton Mowbray. Alongside my graphic design work I have always painted, but had never fully focussed on it before, I set myself a timescale to produce a series of work within and see how it went. The work was mainly street art style, stencil work layered with paint, Banksy was a big inspiration at the time, and I created some bespoke textiles as well as some prints alongside the originals. Laz in Four Walls was really kind, and helped me with the framing and took sales for me on preview night.
Creating my first body of work was hard going, hanging an exhibition even harder, and promoting preview night was exhausting, but we got there in the end, the preview was busy. The main thing I learned was that it is too much work for one person to paint, exhibit and promote an exhibition! Some works sold, and are now happily hanging in the homes of friends and neighbours, who were kind enough to visit and support me.
This is a selection of some of the work which was exhibited. My work has French stories layered within it – as I am still a bit of a francophile. I lived in central Brittany, France for 5 years, my boys went to school there and had a great experience. We visited many French art exhibitions, theatre groups and music concerts, and this has all fed in to my work. The Tour de France used to race near to where we lived, and the French bike man featured in my work, used to cycle past me, en route to buy his baguette most mornings.
