LYZ GARDNER - PAINTER

Our response to landscape is often emotional – there are places we yearn for when we are happy or sad. Places where we feel at peace. We often day dream about returning to our special places.

When I was a child, I valued very highly the time I spent outside. Favourite places (mountains, woods, or coast) I considered sanctuary.

After a degree in Visual Art, I travelled widely throughout the British Isles painting the places I visited. I then completed a PGCE and  embarked on a teaching career  before settling down in East Anglia where I now divide my time between my educational work, studio practice and being in the landscape.

Now I have this chance to paint moments in landscape, the light on water, the movement of a breeze amongst the grasses or dappled shapes on a path. I usually have an idea in mind before I start of what I would like to create but very often as the work develops the landscape changes.I allow these intuitive changes to take hold and lead me to a different view. Often the process and techniques that I use creates a different focus too which can become important in its own right. I enjoy this creative journey as much as the destination.

With oil pastels I have the freedom to be spontaneous - I prefer to work directly with my hands rather than with a brush. I enjoy building up many layers of  the medium , creating texture, which is then added to, etched into or removed with a palette knife. I start with light colours and gradually introduce darker layers and then as I remove the outer layers the lighter base is revealed. So in this sense I work back to the light. This process and technique is what defines my work.