Statement: Vanessa Marsh

The act of travelling from one place to another, a Journey; and a place to which one is going. The subject matter of the work has evolved from topographical maps and aerial photography, at once an aid to journeys and the first step to ones chosen destination.

My aim is to explore themes of placement both in relation to the work and the viewer's reaction to a piece through the possibilities of pure shape and colour. The work is determined by a process of building up layers of paint, solid colour that creates the definition and texture of the surface. The paintings create a space for contemplation rather than comprehension. The viewer is asked to consider the paintings, and concentrated looking brings up the possibilities of space, density, objects-suspended waiting to be observed differently.

Patrick Heron once said, "Almost everything people try to say about painting turns out to be unsatisfactory" but also simply added, "There isn't any shape without colour and there's no colour without shape. You're unaware of colour unless it has a boundary. In other words, one colour is butted against another, and that boundary is itself a sort of linear reality".

All reality is open to abstraction, when looking closely at anything its intimate details become apparent. The whole becomes abstracted into parts, those parts into even smaller parts. The equal pressures between these create a mosaic of the visual scene, which is harmonious once you are aware of it. Though seemingly flat and two dimensional, the textures, shapes and colours that dovetail into each other define more than one plane and direction.