Helen Joyce

"No amount of skilful invention can replace the essential element of imagination." - Edward Hopper. My work has long been about my response to places I have seen;about the stories they tell in their dilapidated walls and weathered forms. Recent Covid restrictions put a halt to travel and my recent paintings have become a destination in their own right after a journey, sometimes tortuous but always exciting and intuitive. it is a journey through layers of colour, the sensuousness of the paint and the different ways of making marks. Never sure at the start even which way the canvas should hang and which direction to take, I embark on a creative journey when being lost becomes an opportunity and serendipity a travelling companion. It is when a particular form grabs my attention and suggests to me a story that the journey nears its end and the painting its completion and my hope is that other viewers will find their own stories within the ambiguous spaces and colours of abstraction.