Sitting with a cup of coffee in a spacious room on 75 Kimberley Road, where is piled with paint, brushes and tools of painting. Lynne usually spend several hours a day in her studio which is in the ground floor of her house. She shared the experiences of her art work and the felt of her artistic life.
Lynne Cartlidge, a painter who settled in Cardiff for decades.“I was born in 1964 in Wellington, New Zealand. Then I moved to Cornwall with my family when I was three-year-old. I originally trained in fine art, painting at Cardiff Art College attaining a BA (Hons) Fine Art degree from 1984 and I finished the course at 1987. That’s what first bring me to Cardiff. Then I am currently settled in Cardiff.” In the just past year, 2017, Lynne was elected the member of the Royal Cambrian Academy of the Arts, which was constituted in 1882, a centre for artistic excellence in Wales, an independent charity supporting Welsh art and artists. Art is encouraged, made, exhibited and debated in RCA (Royal Cambrian Academy).
In recent few weeks, Lynne is keeping painting at her studio and planning for her exhibition at gallery, “I have painted 4 paintings, and I am very satisfied with it.”
The style of Lynne’s paintings does not tend to focus so much on the details, kind of like impressionism, “If you get very focus on the details, then sometimes makes the painting look like quite stiff, so that’s kind of balance of how much information you translates into the picture, in that case, I am always obstructing it.”
Sunlight is one of the hardest part to be control.The subjects which often be chosen is common everyday items, such as fruit and flowers, teacups, interior views or light streaming in from outside. Lynne’s painting does not hard to be find that is special and dedicated, filled with light, with the objects sometimes barely appear there. Understated and engaging is both the feeling that audience have.
At the process of Lynne’s’ artistic creation, she is not only maintain the original style but also brave to try something new. “I have to use darker tones lately, that is very interesting as well. I think it is sort depends on its influencing and also the light and what is happening at that time. Sometimes I would use artificial lights to change the environment.” There are also some challenge show up, “The flowers looks different when you place them in each positions, but I find it is difficult to control the shadow,” but she believed that it is the interesting part in painting, “You will never exactly know what you gonna find, that feeds creative mind cause you see something surprisingly. Even sometimes I can be inspired by my neighbors, gave me idea for three pictures. ”
Less extreme color is used in paintings.In addition, it is a well-known fact the balance between artistic creation and life is a puzzling problem. As for Lynne, the situation seems not that hard, even she is exploring more new unknown field, “I would start my day with a cup of coffee, then I write for a few old pages, I found that is good for clearing out my head a bit, and also planning what I like to do.” After divorced with husband, Lynne takes more time on painting and enjoy herself in journey. “My mother invited me to go to Italy with her about a year ago and the artistic country has inspired me a lot. Although it is quite demand the weather and lots of tools to prepare, maybe this year I would try to go out to paint.”
“And I then plan my day a little bit around the light, what the weather is, so it is a bit difficult this time, because you have to against the gloomy and cold. And I have to plan what people doing this time, because sometimes when I feel the weather just freezing, then I would not spend the day in studio, that would not be a good things to do, so I suppose I just do some multi-tasking. Sometimes I have to work frame. If I plan to paint, then I will well-organize the day, at least leave 2-3 hours to paint.”
Not only painting, but also she doing the framework.Lynne does not the only person who painting in her family, her son, William also paints very well. It is full of Williams’ painting on the upstairs wall, William started to paint at his very early age, even though now his already working in China and not very often back to home, William painted a portrait of his mother in the Chinese Spring Festival.
“I find painting is a fascinating process, it doesn’t make me feel indulged because on one level it doesn’t really have much significance in material world. But I have started to think that art generally. What is more, painting is a very necessary part of human existence. I am interested in creativity and human creativity. So for me painting means a lot, hopefully for people who touch my works, we just saw doing a bit something to do with human spirit, and I feel lucky that I am able to focus on that at the moment, because you never know what’s going to happen,” said Lynne.
The choose of colors is very soft and elegant.To all the artists, there are different meaning of art to them, “We are vulnerable to think on our life and give it a way. And I know all the artists pursuing that situation that have to take time out. But we are all doing our best to explore painting communicate visually, and something emotional in it, it is great when you here that people respond to painting, that is really worthy last 7 years, it is quite a challenging activity, because when you start, you have an idea, it sometimes under control, but sometimes out of control, I find that is fascinating. And I will love to continue to doing that.”
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