room @ The Model
3rd – 31st August 2012

Deirdre Houston ‘Blue Lake’ 2012

As both a recent Graduate in Fine Art and a returnee former emigrant, within the work I am referencing memories of location and dislocation, growing up hearing soft recitals of Yeats ‘Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths, Of night and light and half light.’

The nature of my practice hinges on creating atmosphere through the medium of collage and oil paint. I initially translate my black and white photographs as a tool to deconstruct the naturalistic colours found in landscape. Several layers of thins washes of oil paint are applied, leaving some areas to flood and other areas to dry.

I retract into the work using the marks and residual spaces created by the thin paint, isolating the fractured structures with unexpected colours such as acidic greens, neon pink and orange. Whilst adopting a free approach in the initial stages, I work with the marks created by the medium without being too dogmatic.