Hello and welcome.
about
The paintings are made with acrylic paint on canvas stretched on a wooden frame, they can be hung without an outer frame.
I like the mystery of art, how images arrive through the process of painting and repainting. Animals, trees and flowers usually appear and I think they link to the unconscious or collective consciousness.
I am open to letting ideas flow through me. I heard an artist using the word improvisation to describe their work and I think that is a good way to describe my work.
I have painted animals for many years but the human figure has been calling me for sometime. I think the art dolls are one way I can bring the human form back into my work. In a way I am unable to say where painting will take me next and that is the journey.
Works that are sold are held in private collections in America, New Zealand, Europe and the UK.
In 2024 I continued making art dolls and started to make stitched rolls using a range of recycled materials and thread that seemed to be a form of collage made on fabric rather than paper. I liked the challenge they presented because, as with the paintings, I didn't know what the finished outcomes would be. They were a way to find a new way to say something. I liked the simplicity of materials: needle, thread and fabric and the tactile quality: soft, smooth, silky and wonderfully colourful.
2025 has seen a return to working in clay. I had been working on an sewing inspired by Kenojuak's Enchanted Owl and I began to think who my mentors in art would be, women I could look back on and consider how they inspire me, what is it about their work that resonates with me? Lorna Graves is very important, I am enchanted by her riders and honed down animal forms and I briefly had a moment of connections and a thought message came to me to refine my ideas through making smaller simpler forms. It felt like the impulse/advice to work on a smaller human scale. Consequently the ceramic pieces in the new work 2025 page are the result. while I was making the traveller series I kept thinking of those homeless souls trying to cross the English Channel in search of a better safer life. I wish our hearts were bigger.
Who would your mentors be? Can you form a gathering of persons who inspire you? How might they encourage you?
At the start of 2026 I find myself back at the beginning (I always feel I am at the beginning) My current fascination is with the tight white dresses in Paula Rego's paintings and the cover illustration by Selina Fenich to the book The Secret Commonwealth, Robert Kirk and Andrew Lang published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform as seen on Amazon.
Again I am restarting my artistic journey this time on horse back in a tight white dress! May 2026 the year of the horse bring you (and me) joyous and creative adventures.
"Art is the only place you can do what you like. That's freedom."
Paula Rego.
Best wishes and thankyou for reading.
Please contact me at contact@colleenshaw.co.uk if you are interested in my work.
.
I like the mystery of art, how images arrive through the process of painting and repainting. Animals, trees and flowers usually appear and I think they link to the unconscious or collective consciousness.
I am open to letting ideas flow through me. I heard an artist using the word improvisation to describe their work and I think that is a good way to describe my work.
I have painted animals for many years but the human figure has been calling me for sometime. I think the art dolls are one way I can bring the human form back into my work. In a way I am unable to say where painting will take me next and that is the journey.
Works that are sold are held in private collections in America, New Zealand, Europe and the UK.
In 2024 I continued making art dolls and started to make stitched rolls using a range of recycled materials and thread that seemed to be a form of collage made on fabric rather than paper. I liked the challenge they presented because, as with the paintings, I didn't know what the finished outcomes would be. They were a way to find a new way to say something. I liked the simplicity of materials: needle, thread and fabric and the tactile quality: soft, smooth, silky and wonderfully colourful.
2025 has seen a return to working in clay. I had been working on an sewing inspired by Kenojuak's Enchanted Owl and I began to think who my mentors in art would be, women I could look back on and consider how they inspire me, what is it about their work that resonates with me? Lorna Graves is very important, I am enchanted by her riders and honed down animal forms and I briefly had a moment of connections and a thought message came to me to refine my ideas through making smaller simpler forms. It felt like the impulse/advice to work on a smaller human scale. Consequently the ceramic pieces in the new work 2025 page are the result. while I was making the traveller series I kept thinking of those homeless souls trying to cross the English Channel in search of a better safer life. I wish our hearts were bigger.
Who would your mentors be? Can you form a gathering of persons who inspire you? How might they encourage you?
At the start of 2026 I find myself back at the beginning (I always feel I am at the beginning) My current fascination is with the tight white dresses in Paula Rego's paintings and the cover illustration by Selina Fenich to the book The Secret Commonwealth, Robert Kirk and Andrew Lang published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform as seen on Amazon.
Again I am restarting my artistic journey this time on horse back in a tight white dress! May 2026 the year of the horse bring you (and me) joyous and creative adventures.
"Art is the only place you can do what you like. That's freedom."
Paula Rego.
Best wishes and thankyou for reading.
Please contact me at contact@colleenshaw.co.uk if you are interested in my work.
.