Gill Mahoney

In the past year I abandoned art as a lost cause.-- having painted since I was eight, We lived in Cornwall for eighteen years before we moved to Italy, and I sold hundreds of paintings there via galleries, but here the facility where we are just is not available, and I have had no luck on the net- as yet.
When I was 18 until I was 23 I painted portraits and landscapes for a living this being 50years ago. I thought I could just pick up where I left off but it is not so easy. I think now, have I lost the plot? gone out of fashion? become corny? just not copping on. Its quite alarming to find you are out of it.
Anyway whilst i have written a couple of books meantime} I feel inclined to return to painting my emotionally expressive semi abstracts again

I was born in the Midlands in the post war years, not a choice place as far as I was concerned. My parents broke up, and my mother was very seriously ill so I was sent to live with an aunt when I was about two and half years old.
'You mummy is dead' she said 'I am to be your mummy now she has gone to heaven' she said. And I seemed to accept that and settle down very well with her family, my cousins because my brothers and we played long hours in the fields and by the river in Wiltshire. But, some years later my mother looking as though she had come back from the dead retrieved me and we returned to the midlands and the dereliction left by the war. She was unwell mentally and physically and in a sense I looked after her.

I was a very isolated child drawing became and natural choice of activity from a very young age. I covered any useable paper with drawings, and wore all the pencils to the but including my mothers lip liner. I started oil painting at age eight using a paint by numbers kit ( reverse side).
I had many years of training once I was eleven, and taught a little also. I was always somewhat of an outsider, and not compliant with the college styles of painting. In that sense I preferred it when I went my own way.
I began selling on a commission basis in my late teens, and continued to until family ructions, caused me to leave the area- abandoning everything to live in Sussex where I had been invited by my long lost father. He claimed he had a hotel and could give me one man shows etc etc. and had clients visiting and events where I could maximise my selling and showing. But it did not happen and I ended up stranded without family or friend in Sussex.
I suffered a nervous breakdown, which immobilised me for many years. I find some things very difficult to this day, such as invigilating at my own exhibitions. But eventually met my present partner
and we procured three children now grown up. I educated them at home, so art was left most of those years to be taken up again later. But when I did, it was a whole new kettle of fish.

Drawing and painting is something I have almost always done, well perhaps not in the cot but not long afterwards. I had lessons-formally from the age of eleven until I was about twenty three so I think I know my subject quite well.
As most of the best painters I have seen have received ‘no training’ I suspect that some of the most original and beautiful art is best ‘left to develop on its own’. That persistence and keenness are the best teachers after all, and professional finish results from continuous practice.

Also that self expression in art is a very arguable state. If someone sticks fixedly to a given style-can they be deemed to be expressing themselves? Or expressing the wishes of others? Surely someone who truly is expressing themselves will change style frequently. Yes, I know some famous artists have moved through different styles but one thing which seems to be appreciated is the ‘unmistakable nature’ of that persons work.
I don’t know if I can offer that particular ‘unmistakable quality’. What I do varies so much it surprises me! But what ‘I’ do expresses whether I want it to or not exactly my feeling at a given time. Therefore you will see paintings which hardy look to be done by the same hand- though doubtless there is something they have common which I have not noticed.
There are the vague pale ones- these are usually done midwinter from photos
Reflecting my remoteness at that time when I feel most of my feelings are toned down into a kind of ‘winter gloom’ not dark, but faded and detatched.
Then as spring comes in so does my rush of green no matter how much I try to hold back the tendency the green will out. Summer and the turquoise overtakes wherever it can, then reds, and strong blues and yellows- and the green slips away into the colour of dried grass, finally at the height of summer There seems to be a move into light soft colours but without the deadness of winter.
My paintings are usually a surprise to me- eminating, I suppose from somewhere deep within even when representing day to day things.
I do not strive to reach some deep rooted inner fantasy expose something repressed, the feelings at least come out without invitation.
Having thus expressed myself I find it hard to part with these reflections of my inner soul or moods, but over the years I have drizzled away selling
-in the galleries of Cornwall and at various exhibitions. And commissions mostly for portraits but also landscapes. I admit I don’t like having to ‘fit’ into the requirements of galleries ( who might have a plan they want to carry out requiring a certain style or even price)