Tracy Whitbread SWAc
I began my working career as a graphic designer. I studied Art Therapy at Sheffield University and worked as an Art Therapist both privately and in the NHS. I also ran art groups for people with special needs in colleges and schools.
I have exhibited widely both in the United Kingdom and in Canada where I lived for a short time. After experiencing the vast space of the Rocky Mountain landscape with its forests, lakes and mountains, I decided to move to Devon in 2000 to lead a more rural life. Solitude feeds my inner world and inspires me to paint.
I paint in an abstract style. Its emotional power and suggestions of inner landscapes excite me the most. My paintings have many layers of colour and texture which sometimes echo the shapes and colours of the landscape around me such as the red iron oxide of the earth or the endless greys and blues of the coastline.
Dark Descent
Serpent Path
I find that my paintings have a life of their own and even though I have some idea of what I would like to achieve, it all happens through working in relationship with the materials on the canvas.
I enjoy the interplay between opposites - the tension between chaos and order being predominant. I often work from a chaotic base, then create space and clarity by eliminating details.
When painting I find that I truly have to face myself - the life force within me, my blocks and resistance to this energy which are the 'prima materia' - the raw materials of my work.
The canvas becomes an exciting arena of possibilities onto which struggle, life and death are acted out in colours and shapes. My work then becomes an enactment of life rather than a painting of it.
www.tracywhitbread.com
