Shirley Vauvelle

 

Shirley Vauvelle is an established artist working from her studio near Filey. She works full time on ceramic sculpture and abstract/semi abstract paintings.

Nature fascinates her, the power and vulnerability, the lines, shapes and colour of it. She has a rich experience of nature in her own garden environment, using plant material with the surface of the clay or painting an emotional reaction to how the garden changes in different light or seasons.

Many of her abstract paintings begin with nothing in mind, but she finds after a while a familiarity of a certain place or experience can occur, which brings an emotional response to the colour and mark making. She uses plein air painting or sketches as starting point for form, shape and energy but does not that want it to define the mapping of progress.

Her aim is not to get a good painting or sculpture, she looks for elegance of shape, of line, interesting juxtaposition that catches her attention. Looking how colours work together intuitively, and the emotion that comes from them, being very sensitive to colour and how adding and subtracting can make it work or not. Iteration is very necessary on her work, it’s rare that things come quickly, it builds up slowly by adding and then taking away then adding again.

She works mainly in acrylic with some oil, mixed media on board or canvas, and hand-built stoneware clay with slips and oxides.