I am an Anglo/Scottish contemporary artist currently based in rural Suffolk. My work usually starts with something experienced in the natural world and through photographs, sketches, sound, texture and memory a design takes shape which is often repeated in iterations until the design expresses my sensory and subjective experience.
Unplanned encounters, unexpected effects discovered mid-process, unconscious expressions of emotion are at the core of my working practice. I like to recycle by painting on what I have around me; old doors, repurposed wood, my old paintings as well as more traditional bases. My work is often executed in oil, I also use pastels and inks and I like to make my own gessos using chalk, powdered metals and pigments. Increasingly, I use ceramics as part of a phenomenological research process which influences the texture and pattern in the painting.
Currently, the theme of my work explores abandoned spaces, the demise of the rural industry around me and my historical place within it; I'm completing an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art.
Abandoned Space
For me, abandoned space is evocative of what has been, what is and what could have been. Whether it’s the decommissioned Sizewell A nuclear power station, the abandoned weapons testing buildings on the island of Orford Ness in Suffolk, the dilapidated barracks of Sculthorpe air base in Norfolk or the now silent brownfield sites that once buzzed with activity, it’s full of stories, of people, work, lives lived, memories lost and future possibility.
Rural Industries
The landscape around me is dotted with symbols of the current and the changing rural economy. From the raw physicality of empty grain silos to the earthy symmetry of a plough in a field, I’m drawn to shape, geometry and the evocation of the past, present and future all blurring into one, offset against the changing colour, smell and sound of the landscape.
Instagram @rosenfelddavie