"I work in an old mews workshop, making it beautifully cool in the summer months but ice cold in winter, so I paint the memories and experiences of the previous warmer months. It's as if I'm trying to conjour summer sunshine with paint.
I work from sketches and photographs then use inks, oils, wax and drawing media to build layers of texture, mark and colour. Sometimes I remove entire sections of work to reveal the ghost of those marks, only to then work into them again.
Exploring the tick-tock of existence is my starting point when painting. I am inspired by our natural surroundings, seasonal changes and how this cycle both generates and recalls sensations and memories.
I spend time in gardens and beside lakes, exploring rock pools and drinking in the reflections and refractions. This generates momentum for an evolving series of paintings which are about shards of sunlight and snippets of blue skies between the tangle of growth; the above and the underneath; reflected and shaded; the crystal clear and the murkier, more confusing things.
Attempting to capture this using coloured substances applied to a surface is compulsive and the flirt with that elusive creative magic is addictive.
Growing up in Brighton and the surrounding towns I was usually outside as a child - hanging upside down somewhere in the garden or mucking about down at the boat yard my Grandma ran. I loved the colours and the sounds there; the clatter of the riggings and the reflections on the water.
My family are a mix of eccentric creatives and inventive engineers. Their conversations and actions instilled in me the idea of endless opportunities and inspired me to follow my own path.
I studied art and arts management at Hastings Art College, Oxford Brookes and Sussex Universities and after graduation lived in Cyprus, teaching art at school level, returning to Brighton & Hove in the late 1990's.
I regularly exhibit across the UK at art fairs and galleries and welcome visitors to my studio and gallery space in Hove. " Lara Bowen
