Felicity Mara

ABOUT FELICITY

Felicity Mara was born in London and studied at Camberwell School of Art. She has lived and worked in Cornwall since the 1990s and in 2012 was awarded a tenancy at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives. She is showing a group of recent paintings on linen and canvas, together with small studies on gesso panels.

“I tend to work either on a large or very small scale – in different ways, both seem to encourage a feeling that you can launch into something new, that exploration is possible. My studio faces out to sea, and whether or not I’m conscious of it, the outside environment comes into my work – the light flooding in, the sounds from the beach, the presence of the sea. It all combines to create a feeling of suspended time, which helps me to focus. 

“There’s a constant negotiation between the first, often quite bold and rapid marks I make on a new canvas and the much slower growth of what feels like a self-sufficient image. It can take months and even years, though in the end what I’m aiming for is something like the sense of possibility, excitement and at the same time stillness that I get from a big blank canvas before it’s been touched! Right the way through, the unpainted or negative space remains active – it defines the image as strongly as the positive marks.

“I work a lot on unprimed canvas. Once I’ve made a mark, it can be hard to change – a single line or tiny area of colour can become a very complete statement. In this way, time comes into the paintings too – there are pauses in the process, and each painting has its own movement.”