Pip Lewis

I have been a painter for 40 years alongside being a Co founder and Director of spacetocreate, a community interest company improving access and participation in the visual arts in West Wales. www.spacetocreate.org.uk/people/pip-lewis/

I am currently work from a studio on a farm in North Pembrokeshire, where I live as part of a Co –housing intentional community.

My recent work continues to focus on intuitive and gestural mark making, and the use of colour as an emotional visual response to people, time and place. The work is process led, not directly representational; it is often about responding to the unknown. I want to find, not so much answers, but explore a process of investigation directly with the paint.

The process involves both waiting and action, sometimes creating seemingly random marks and building many layers of paint, which might be scrubbed back or washed off before finding the right density and colour, scratching and scoring to reveal what has gone before. I build up something having disturbed something: destruction becomes construction.

This allows for a private pictorial language to develop balancing method and aesthetics. This aesthetic concept involves keeping as many expressive options open as possible, valuing the importance of learning through doing and knowledge gained through practice, making ideas explicit, in visual form.

Playfulness and risk taking are central. I perceive myself as skilled in accommodating the unexpected, and value curiosity, imaginative response, open-mindedness and the freedom to explore concurrent strands of interest.

In 2021 two paintings were selected, and one was awarded a prize at Oriel Myrddin’s OPEN Exhibition in Carmarthen.

In July 2022 two paintings were selected for Arolwyg, an exhibition of contemporary Welsh paintings at Oriel Y Parc St Davids, Pembrokeshire.. www.pembrokeshirecoast.wales/oriel-y-parc/exhibitions/st-davids-room/