About

I have always had an interest in art and design and was a dress designer/maker for many years. I started experimenting with acrylic paints about 12 years ago just for fun. First of all I was producing very simple paintings, by just experimenting with blocks of colour in a sort of Rothko-esque type of style. I also tried splashing and dribbling the paint in the style of Jackson Pollock too, I loved it! After having had to be so precise and considered with pattern cutting, it was exhilarating to be free and spontaneous. I have had no formal art training and therefore had no rules to follow, no do’s or don’ts, no limitations in my head, but a lot to learn . All I followed were my feelings on what I should do. The paintings were very simple but some of them were worth hanging on a wall even then! Anyhow, that was the beginning of this venture.

After a while, I felt I wanted to produce paintings with more depth and beauty. I started to explore the technique of paint pouring and using additives such as silicone. I enjoyed this method very much for a while but felt I wanted more control over the outcome – it was too hit and miss for my liking.

Eventually I found a way of manipulating the paint and layering the paint to achieve a desired effect to some degree. However, with this type of abstract art, I’m just following a feeling of what I should do next and that will change moment by moment. Therefore my original vision will change and I have learnt to go with that. The more I am willing to trust my intuition, the better the result.

If I fix my vision and outcome too rigidly, I seem to work against the paint, the painting and myself. It’s a real lesson in life and I am learning this same lesson again and again on a deeper level each time . I understand now what musicians and other artists mean when they say their work ‘comes through them’ and is almost beyond them. I used to change areas on my pieces that I didn’t feel were quite right and redo them. I started to take ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos of my work, just to record the development of the painting and was astonished to find that, looking with fresh eyes at the original painting, what I had perceived as a ‘mistake’ was in fact a glorious quirk that actually brought something special to that piece. I also saw that often by tweaking a painting it had lost it’s organic vibe. That was a huge turning point for me. I do still change parts that I am not entirely happy with but not until I have walked away from it for a while and reviewed later with a new point of view.

I’m still developing my style and, in reality, I probably always will be. My desire is to bring a sense of well being to the viewer, for them to see beauty and spirit. As you can probably tell, I have had great pleasure in creating these pieces and I just hope that you will feel the same sense of happiness when you view them. Thank you for your interest!

​Pauline Tantardini