Artist Spotlight - Mary Chaplin
What is your favourite subject matter to paint? What inspires you to paint?
I like to paint light and nature. My garden, all gardens. I think that deep inside me, each time I work on a subject, I relive a walk in the garden of my childhood where it seemed there was always sunshine! Light is what matters to me most because light is life! Light in colour but also in movement. Giving the illusion of speckles of sunlight on the path leading to the garden is to launch an invitation to enter the picture.
Which artists, past and present, have inspired you?
Joaquín Sorolla, Claude Monet, Mark Rothko, Joan Mitchell and Henri Le Sidaner
Your works span a huge range of sizes, what helps you decide the scale that you are going to work on?
It's hard to explain but certain subjects inspire certain formats without me knowing exactly why. It's instinctive.
When I work on small canvas there is a more intimate representation, conversely I move towards greater abstraction on large formats. The large format also allows a form of immersion in the work, during its creation for me in the process and also in its place that it finds in the mind of the viewer.
Your works have a beautiful light are so bright and attention grabbing. How do you select your colour palette?
My work took a big turn in 2005 when I realized that light itself could lead me to a form of abstraction. After observing the reflections through stained glass projected on the floor of a small chapel, other colors were added to my palette and modified my work. All shades of blue are inseparable from my work and what would I do without red?
Wychwood Art, Market Place, Deddington, Oxfordshire OX15 0SE
