Amy Ford, artist's statement
For me, art is inextricably connected to emotion. The powerful energy that is all around us in the natural world fills me with a sense of exhilaration and mystery.
It’s the things that could so easily go unnoticed that I love – an expression that wasn’t meant to be seen, an object that doesn’t quite belong, or a landscape that appears forgotten.
I believe in painting not just an idyllic scene, but subtly including the layers that make up true human experience. Often there is isolation and loss just below the surface of intense beauty, and vice versa. It is this complexity - this tension between competing forces - that I want to highlight for my viewer.
I come to the easel full of emotions. It is there that I make sense of them and, more importantly, make use of them, working out my highs and lows through painting.
The palette knife is frequently my tool of choice because it affords the immediacy I require. I enjoy the challenge of handling a lot of paint on the canvas. The knife’s capacity for bold, decisive application contains an element of risk that conveys a sense of urgency and passion. Thick texture joins color, value and form as important elements of my representational style.
Being an artist allows me to explore and appreciate the unadorned nuances of life and provides a powerful means of emotional expression.
— Amy Ford