Artist Statement
Fascinated by the myth of the English landscape as a visual epitome of Englishness, I use the natural world in my paintings to tell another story of England.
Our green and pleasant lands—shaped over centuries and composed of flora and fauna gathered from across the globe—undergo an unravelling as a duality between dark and light comes to the fore.
Driven by stories of migration in my own family and a childhood spent immersed in nature, I am compelled to unearth the history, explore the physical presence, and examine my personal connection to these landscapes.
These often idyllic spaces can tell stories of the UK’s role as an empire. But while dark roots can be found in their origin, there is also light and hope in their manifestation. Vital in their contribution to ecological healing and serving as sites that highlight the UK's deeply rooted diversity, these landscapes allow darkness to be transformed into light, as themes which revere nature and contemplate its sensory, healing and psychological effects emerge.
It’s this transformation of light from dark which forms the basis for my language with paint. Working with oil paint, linseed oil, and solvents, I develop landscapes that merge real and imagined places through techniques of removal, corrosion, and distortion. I refrain from introducing white paint to the palette, achieving luminosity instead through the removal of pigment—creating light by stripping away darkness.
Much of work is created in series of paintings which respond to specific spaces and species, such as the London planes of Hoxton Square or Margate’s holm oak trees. Within each painting, the drip of paint is allowed to run; the alchemical reactions of seeping and distortion mirror the fragility of nature, the chaos beneath the order, and the layers embedded in these landscapes.
Our green and pleasant lands—shaped over centuries and composed of flora and fauna gathered from across the globe—undergo an unravelling as a duality between dark and light comes to the fore.
Driven by stories of migration in my own family and a childhood spent immersed in nature, I am compelled to unearth the history, explore the physical presence, and examine my personal connection to these landscapes.
These often idyllic spaces can tell stories of the UK’s role as an empire. But while dark roots can be found in their origin, there is also light and hope in their manifestation. Vital in their contribution to ecological healing and serving as sites that highlight the UK's deeply rooted diversity, these landscapes allow darkness to be transformed into light, as themes which revere nature and contemplate its sensory, healing and psychological effects emerge.
It’s this transformation of light from dark which forms the basis for my language with paint. Working with oil paint, linseed oil, and solvents, I develop landscapes that merge real and imagined places through techniques of removal, corrosion, and distortion. I refrain from introducing white paint to the palette, achieving luminosity instead through the removal of pigment—creating light by stripping away darkness.
Much of work is created in series of paintings which respond to specific spaces and species, such as the London planes of Hoxton Square or Margate’s holm oak trees. Within each painting, the drip of paint is allowed to run; the alchemical reactions of seeping and distortion mirror the fragility of nature, the chaos beneath the order, and the layers embedded in these landscapes.
To read more on Twinkle's background, including collaborations with artist Tinsel Edwards, you can read the essay Affluence and Avarice by painter Graham Crowley here.