Shoal Arts

Artist: Stella Tripp

Title: MOMENTS THAT COULD BE OVERLOOKED BUT CATCH YOU UNAWARES AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE, 2015   £300

RECLAIM THE NIGHT, 2014   £600

Medium:

Watercolour, gouache, fabric, yarn, wood, 50 x 50 cm 

Watercolour, gouache, ink, muslin, paper, pins, wire mesh, 27 x 27 cm.

My work involves a challenging exploration of what art can do. An awareness of the history of art informs and enriches the visual language I use. Years ago, in America, I stopped using rectangular stretched canvas and started building makeshift constructions to paint on, that better reflected my situation and my state of mind. I studied art from different cultures and times: exploring the nature of art in the light of cultural and societal conditioning opened my eyes to unlimited possibilities.

I work completely openly, questioning everything and making connections. Inspiration comes from the totality of experience: things I think, feel, hear, remember, as well as what I see; and I interpret it using a broad art vocabulary in a variety of media. The process of creating is important: an engagement with the physical sensuality of materials; the challenge of combining real shapes and textures with painted ones: the alchemy of transformation. I like to work around the edges and in the gaps: between drawing, painting and sculpture, between figurative work and abstraction - exploring the nature of reality, both gentle and brutal: the fragility of the world and our engagement with it – and revelling in the language of art.