Interview to the artist by Rachelle Gryn Brettler, from our Anniversary Book
As a child, I was more craft oriented than arty but at school, I chose art. I moved on to illustration at Brighton College of Art where Raymond Briggs was my tutor. Then, when I had three children under the age of four, I had to pause for a while. When I had the time, I started paper cutting. I began to experiment with painting wood varnish onto paper, which had this lovely effect with a slight transparency so I could shine light through it. I was using simple figures and had set up light boxes. I loved the paper shapes, the light that the shadows created and my work came from that. I have always done figures. People know me from the flying figures. I wanted to get movement into my work.
My bird figures tend to come from photography. I adore Leni Riefenstahl’s photographs and I have used some of her images, including her iconic1936 Olympics photograph. Sometimes I might change them a little bit, maybe re-drawing them, enlarging them or drawing them freehand, which in a way makes them look freer.
Murmurations are an important influence in my work. When my parents came back from America, they moved to Somerset where there are huge starling murmurations. We now have a home in Suffolk, and in lockdown we began to turn the fields into wildflower meadows. My father is a botanist and he helped us with suggestions of what to grow—starting with Yellow Rattle. I pick the flowers I like and pull them apart. Then I research them in old botanical books which are wonderfully diagrammatic. I draw one and then cut it out. I do the same with the little birds. Then I produce these shapes again, and again, and again.
In the last year I have been making the figures falling through the air with a stream of wildflowers and grasses, rather than birds, adding more movement. This is a big change in my work. I am happy doing botanical subjects: hydrangeas, dandelions, primula; all influenced by my books full of Victorian botanical diagrams. The end result is quite organic. I gather all the elements I have cut and then throw them up in the air, so they are very loose… it looks like there is a bit of a breeze.
The paper I always use is Arches, the thinnest one you can get, but it is still quite strong. I always use a scalpel, not a surgical scalpel. Sometimes I use spray paints to add colour before I cut. For the background, I might use an organic paint in muted colours: dark browns, greys, dusty greens. I also use plain brown paper—I really like its simplicity. My birds are all monochrome.
My work is three dimensional and if you look closely, lots of the cutouts are on pins to keep them in place and because they are raised, they throw shadows. If they just lay flat, it could just be a drawing.
My titles tend to come from expressions I have come across—in film, television, books, poetry—which is why they are usually in inverted commas. For example, Breaths for my Brother, We love you so much, I would have heard it, read it somewhere….