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ART: FOCUS ON<br />
Leila Godden<br />
New Horizons 321, 30x20cm, acrylic on board<br />
Is this a representational painting? It’s semirepresentational.<br />
At first my seascapes were more<br />
representational, portraying the waves as I saw<br />
them, but what I’m trying to capture now is more<br />
the mood of the ocean. I’m from Scarborough in<br />
Yorkshire, and I grew up by the sea. Nowadays I<br />
spend hours and hours on the beach at Birling Gap<br />
looking out to sea. In my paintings I’m expressing<br />
the feeling and emotions that I get from being near<br />
the sea. When people look at the paintings I want<br />
their own feelings and experiences to surface.<br />
Why ‘New Horizons’? For me looking out towards<br />
the sea signifies looking out to the future.<br />
That sense of space and freedom – there’s a wealth<br />
of possibilities out there. The paintings represent<br />
what the future might hold.<br />
Do you paint en plein air? No, I go back to my<br />
studio. I’m always working on a few at the same<br />
time. It’s all about adding marks, and adding marks,<br />
until I realise that I can’t add any more marks. Then<br />
I know it’s finished. If I make a mistake I can paint<br />
over, though acrylic being acrylic I can always rub a<br />
mistake off with a cloth.<br />
You use a very limited palette… Blue, brown<br />
and white. I can create a huge range of effects from<br />
those, from punchy to delicate… a full tonal range.<br />
Tell us about your studio… It’s in my back garden<br />
in Halland. It’s new and I’m very proud of it. I<br />
usually work with Heart FM on in the background.<br />
I can’t work without my apron, which is spattered<br />
with paint, going back years. Though I do wash it<br />
from time to time!<br />
Have you any major influences? I love Turner,<br />
and the Cornwall artist Kurt Jackson, and the <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
artist Marco Crivello. My desert island painting?<br />
I’d take the painting by Marco I have in my house,<br />
called Natural History III.<br />
Take us to your favourite gallery. That’s not<br />
hard, we’re sitting in it now! The Chalk Gallery is<br />
a collective of 21 artists, all of whom have a huge<br />
amount of enthusiasm for their part in running the<br />
business. I’d also like to mention Bankside Gallery<br />
next to Tate Modern in London, I’m really excited<br />
that they’ll be exhibiting some of my paintings<br />
from 26th April to 2nd <strong>May</strong>. Alex Leith<br />
Leila is the featured artist at Chalk from 16th <strong>May</strong><br />
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