30 June to 23 July 2015

“Painting has been described as ‘poetry without words’. I prefer to say ‘every picture tells a story’. There is a narrative in all my paintings and the viewer is invited to enter the realm of the imagination where multiple realities co-exist; worlds within worlds. Figures, flowers and birds are depicted realistically but in fantastical situations – thus they become symbols of innocence, beauty and freedom. My process is slow. Occasionally ideas come in a flash of lightning but more often they percolate for a while; images are juxtaposed and adjusted until an inner logic emerges and the painting begins to make some kind of weird sense, to me anyway. Alongside the whimsy and fantasy there is a meticulous attention to detail as I build up layer upon layer of paint. And finally, to paraphrase Leonardo da Vinci, my paintings are never finished, they are abandoned.” – Elise Macdonald