'Voyage' the inspiration behind the collection

In progress since the start of 2022, my latest collection ‘Voyage’ is a celebration of unusual botanics, surrealism, and galactic splendour. Due to be released 26th July, I reflect on the development of ideas that fed into the collection.

Close up of Voyage collection ‘silk sarong’, ‘summer fling’, ‘Venus’

This year started with a holiday to Fuerteventura, a wonderful island with a bohemian feel, stunning tropical natural landscape and inspiring colour palettes.

The volcanic rock that distinguishes the coast line lies heavy in tones of black charcoal; they absorb shades of pinks, blue and greens, on impressive oversized matt rocks. Set against bright pastel candy pink and powder blue skies of sunsets it is easy to see where the colour palette inspiration was born for ‘Voyage’.

Aloes and cacti pop up in the most unexpected places, and are such playful looking plants. To me they look like they come from another planet - perhaps this was the start of me thinking about galactic skies, and embracing surrealism. 

Backdrops of colourful geometric shapes behind these unconstrained organic plants is a wonderful contrast of forms. These scenes got me thinking about exploring differences in freeform organic shapes with sweeping lines.

A day trip to the sand dunes uncovered an unexpected treasure. The home of Carlos Calderón Yruegas, Fuerteventura minimalist Architect. The eclectic and quirky exterior has a huge sense of fun in contrast to his usual minimalistic style. It’s an amazing mix of surrealist sculptures, found objects with native plants. How a seemingly random combination of objects creates a sense of fun, joy and celebration, like a children’s scrapbook that has no filter, just a collection of things they find interesting.

Exploring the themes of surrealism, galactic skies, and unusual botanics further, I collected more imagery on the subject and started to think about compositions that would express this playful contrast of forms. (Surrealist collage / David Hockney)

‘Voyage’ is being released July 2022, a capsule collection of oil paintings expressing playful and exotic botanics, smooth lines, bright pastels and hot pops of colour. 

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