my studio “ I
’m quite a messy painter,” says Anne Kerr, standing in her not-very-messy studio. This is clearly a case of well-organised chaos: the room is divided into a
“wet, messy space” and a “dry space” and there’s a large easel at the far end, near the wood burning stove. Sometimes the one easel isn’t big enough for her home-stretched, oversized canvases and she has to add a second easel, or work on the fl oor. “I like working on a large scale,” she
says. “I feel I can lose myself because it’s such a kinetic thing: you have to get physical with it, you have to wrestle with it. The picture fi lls your visual space and absorbs you.” Her purpose-built studio has big
double doors to enable the large canvases to be brought in and out, but sadly these bigger paintings tend to linger in the studio while her smaller works quickly fi nd new homes. “Galleries don’t really want the bigger works, they’re just too big,” she says. “That’s why I’d like to push for commissions for commercial art to go into hotels – it would allow me to make the large paintings that I enjoy.” Anne grew up in Pembrokeshire and gravitated back there after studying in Derby (where she trained as an art therapist). She has lived in her present home, in a village near Milford Haven, for eight years. Walks in the
surrounding countryside inform much of her work. “I make notes about colours or textures or how I’m feeling; I might note down sounds or smells or the intensity of something like the rapeseed in the spring, that vivid yellow against the beautiful blue sky.” She takes reference photographs too and these, with her sketchbooks, are the fuel for her creative fi re.
Back in the studio, no holds are
barred when it comes to expressing the visual and emotional impact of a place: papier-mâché, collage, plaster, silver leaf – all
have their place on the surface of her paintings. Even black grate polish is used sometimes. “You can polish it and it brings up a soft sheen and creates a nice
Name Anne Kerr
Born Glasgow, 1970
Trained University of Derby
Next exhibition PureArt, Milford Haven, 28 April to 31 May
More info
www.annekerr.co.uk
depth. You can work in layers with it, so you can work over the top of it with white. It lets the texture through.” More conventional materials are
neatly stored in pots of pre-blended colours (she makes batches of each colour to ensure she won’t run out). Golden is her brand of choice. A further element of variety is added
by the addition of Jackson’s Aqua Oils and Winsor & Newton Oil Bars. “Cleaning is a big advantage of the Aqua Oil but I don’t think you can beat real oils for texture. The Oil Bars are soft and buttery, and they are quite good used over the top of paintings.” Her eclectic approach extends to her
tools, which range from regular artists’ brushes to ones more commonly used for decorating or glazing pastry. A bookshelf at the far end of the room provides reference points for her work. She loves 20th-century Cornish painter Peter Lanyon’s use of composition but mostly her focus is on contemporary Welsh artists such as Roger Cecil and David Tress. “Seeing how David rips his work has given me permission to do that sort of thing to my work,” she says. “He’s made me realise you don’t have to be confi ned, you can add bits on and anything goes. It’s helped me work in a more experimental way.” A set of drawers full of painted
pieces of paper attests to this fact. These are Anne’s experiments: thick pieces of paper painted in blues, browns and greens, many of them ripped into random shapes. “That’s had the sander on it,” she says, pulling one out. “Sometimes I’ll have an idea and come out to the studio and test it on one of these bits of paper and see how it goes. The paper is thick – 540lb – so it takes a good bashing.” The proximity of the studio to the
ARTIST’S BIO
house enables Anne to continue until the small hours if she pleases. However, she generally prefers a more structured approach. “I fi nd it very diffi cult to
come in and paint when I’ve only got two hours to spare. I’d rather get the kids to school then come home and be working until 5 o’clock. It’s best if I can get all my jobs done in one week and then dedicate a week or two to painting; then I really feel as if I’m getting somewhere.”
A&I Artists & Illustrators 37
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