Flat-out

About

Using the process of painting Drew attempts to fix colour and gesture into a composition while retaining a quality of elusiveness and dynamism.  The pictorial space Drew creates resists easy interpretation.  The viewers perception of the painting is not fixed, colour and gesture seem to cohere into a fleeting reading of space, light and form before collapsing back into paint. Drew describes her improvised working process:  

“When making a painting I want to find that point where I am only just in control of the paint, letting it behave in ways that may surprise and delight me.  As I work paint leaves the brush in drips and trails … a brush-mark may hold or dissolve, colours separate or blend.  My energy is channeled into the work and I become an observer of the complex illusion of light, space and movement that evolve.  I judge a work finished when it has a life of its own that surpasses my understanding.” 

Mid-20th century ‘Action-Painters’ such as Willem de-Kooning and Jackson Pollock have affected and influenced Drew’s work with their immersive, sensuous, process-based paintings since her student days. It is timely that the New York Abstract Expressionist exhibition is currently showing at the Royal Academy of Art.  Drew employs similar improvised working processes and states:  “I consider abstract paintings that evoke sensations and emotions are part of the human experience and so are as relevant today as ever.”