SSA President Louise Ritchie has created new works for her exhibition ‘Imagineering’ at The Meffan Gallery, which runs from 8 September – 6 October 2012.
Louise Ritchie: ‘My work revolves around an ongoing series of responses to real and imagined environments.
The paintings are not representational but are more a memory of those places, influenced by the emotions and events of the time. They aim to stimulate and provoke thoughts that draw empathy from the viewer.
The process of painting is about constructing atmospheric spaces where light and colour are layered and punctuated by motifs that allow the eye to travel in and around the painting. The physicality of paint, the variety of scale and surfaces, are all integral to the development of my work and which provides a flexible framework which has developed into a very personal visual vocabulary and expressive dialect.
This language composes itself in the way that a piece of music is gradually built up with melody and harmony. Colour expresses the dynamics of loud and soft, while rhythm and balance promote a sense of movement and pace. As a counterpoint to this I employ visual metaphors and symbols derived from my travels and experiences harmonized with my own formal training in music, to lend a sense of both landscape and drama to the work.
These symbols represent elements such as heat, sun, water, patterns in land and sea and also architectural forms and motifs such as arches and bridges. Added to that I explore surfaces and textures that give a tactile quality that can be fragile, violent, energetic, sensual and ambiguous within the same piece.
The paintings are composed so as to have an initial impact that draws the viewer into this metaphorical space and then leads them through the pictorial pathways that connect the layers and motifs together.
With all these components combined I aim to create a work that is intriguing and dynamic and which portrays a range of dimensions from the spatial to the emotional that expresses something of me and my continuing analysis and interpretation of my environment.’
Exhibition runs from 8 September – 6 October 2012
Meffan Museum and Gallery
20 West High Street
Forfar, Angus, DD8 1BB
Scotland
Phone: 01307 464123
Email: the.meffan@angus.gov.uk