MARGARET PEART

Margaret Peart was born in Barnard Castle, Co. Durham. Educated at Barnard Castle Grammar Technical School and Falmouth School of Art. Margaret has worked in education for most of her life and is now currently lecturing at Liverpool John Moores University. In 1987, Margaret was awarded the Balsdon Fellowship at the British School at Rome and in 1991 she was awarded the Margaret Wethered Travelling Scholarship from Merseyside Arts, in both cases this allowed her to travel and study in Italy and New Mexico.

Over the past two years, whilst engaging with the Artist-Teacher MA, my work has embraced a number of themes and issues relating to the land. My work is involved with the power of nature and the elemental forces found within the landscape. I try to deal with man’s encroachment onto the land and its environment, for instance through air-borne poisons released into the atmosphere. The sense of place is an important aspect of my engagement with the landscape. Living in an area of outstanding beauty surrounded by chemical installations has focussed my attention on the fragility of the land. Since I do not always draw directly from nature, it is often the memory or recollection of walking through a specific space at a particular time of day. In the same instance, a painting is made up of a multiple layer of events, rather than one. Memory and time intersperse to give a layered and complex series of images, all sources often distant in time which combine to fit into a cohesive whole. Much of my work in the past has relied on travelling to remote areas in New Mexico and Wyoming, researching ancient Indian sites.

I am concerned with achieving a balance between figurative and abstract representation, to try and express in a symbolic manner the relationship between destructive and dynamic forces. Although my paintings are concerned with the darker elements of man’s psyche, I am also trying to convey a sense of joy and vigour for environmental harmony.