Gillian Warden

I find my paintings hard to accept for what they might be saying about me. My scrapbooks are weighty with disparate images of moody atmospheres, drama, fragility, melancholia, loneliness and despair. I find them beautiful…

I bend to optimism by combining these images with others more sanguin, stitching together something poignant and new without destroying the precious nature of them.

I have learned that Paint has a mind of its own so painting is also collaborating. I am never sure if a work is succeeding so I toil to convince myself that it is. A painting always looks terrible until it is suddenly sublime and the change can happen in seconds. The transformative process is crucial, for what emerges is always far more original than my preconception.