A complex process of layering and working with a palimpsest have led Bev naturally towards abstraction. She is now making large scale gestural, textured paintings. More than ever they embody the idea of a palimpsest, since they emerge from earlier works and carry their own history with them. She often say’s that her paintings can be excavated. The metaphor is an appropriate expression of the layered aspects of her work and the ways in which the past history peeps through the final layer of paint. The gestural markings, colours, textures and shapes all contribute in unpredictable and mysterious ways to the final, finished painting. Bev believes that it’s not unlike the texture of our lives, where history and past experiences form and colour the personalities we become.

In this new stage of her artistic journey she has had to unlearn fifty years of technical “mastery ” to paint from her gut and heart and to some extent to set aside the more intellectual aspects of the composition. She let go of the instinct to impose control so my work can now flow more fully. It is this style of expressive painting that she finds so challenging and exciting. Particularly exhilarating is her discovery that the end results surprise even her and she is unable to anticipate the outcome of her own artistic process!

Bev’s hope is that the joy and gratitude that infuse her work, the sense of aliveness and the passion that inspire the process of composition, will be reflected in the artworks themselves. Nothing is more gratifying to Bev than knowing that this good energy is evident to anyone observing or living with her art.