{"title":"Amanda Blunden","description":"My landscapes are emotional spaces, driven by my desire for open spaces and solitude to think and clear my head of ‘noise’. \r\n\r\nI want to convey a silent drama, a powerful yet quiet punch to the gut and yet it is also important to me that there is a sense of joy and beauty in the work too. It is the tension of these elements working together that I find the most exciting.  \r\n\r\nSeascapes are often suggested in my work; where I have been most content and which appear to me in profound dreams – dreams where I am searching for and often find, an often elusive feeling of intense well-being.  \r\n\r\nMy process is very much one of call and response: stripping away and adding; reacting to colours, forms, marks. \r\n\r\nI often use the colour pink in my paintings – the colour of nurture, comfort and for me, optimism.\r\n\r\nI enjoy painting in layers and creating tension between them and the mark-making. A thin thread of pastel can suggest frailty and fragility and I like to contrast these with strong, dark, opaque forms.\r\n\r\nI will use photos, sketches and collages as my inspiration for beginning and then use a mixture of intuition and purposeful exploration – creating the mood of the painting through the push and pull of the process.\r\n\r\nI consider my work to be semi-abstract as there are often figurative or recognizable elements that I feel the need to include – a tree, a goalpost, a bridge – and yet there are also naïvely drawn motifs. I feel this conflict adds to the tension.\r\n","products":[],"url":"https:\/\/loca.art\/collections\/amanda-blunden.oembed?page=3","provider":"LoCA.art","version":"1.0","type":"link"}