Artist Statement Amanda Blunden

My landscapes are emotional spaces, driven by my desire for open spaces and solitude to think and clear my head of ‘noise’.

I want to convey a silent drama, a powerful yet quiet punch to the gut and yet it is also important to me that there is a sense of joy and beauty in the work too. It is the tension of these elements working together that I find the most exciting.

Seascapes are often suggested in my work; where I have been most content and which appear to me in profound dreams – dreams where I am searching for and often find, an often elusive feeling of intense well-being.

My process is very much one of call and response: stripping away and adding; reacting to colours, forms, marks.

I often use the colour pink in my paintings – the colour of nurture, comfort and for me, optimism.

I enjoy painting in layers and creating tension between them and the mark-making. A thin thread of pastel can suggest frailty and fragility and I like to contrast these with strong, dark, opaque forms.

I will use photos, sketches and collages as my inspiration for beginning and then use a mixture of intuition and purposeful exploration – creating the mood of the painting through the push and pull of the process.

I consider my work to be semi-abstract as there are often figurative or recognizable elements that I feel the need to include – a tree, a goalpost, a bridge – and yet there are also naïvely drawn motifs. I feel this conflict adds to the tension.