Meet Michele Payne
This year we’re celebrating 10 years of Colonnade House and will be sitting down with 10 artists to hear all about their creative practices. From painters, illustrators, sculptors and more, each artist is just one of the many who have been a part of Colonnade House over the years.
We visited Michele’s studio to find out what she’s been up to recently.
Can you tell us a little about your art practice.
When I’m painting, I’m tapping into my subconscious, thinking about memories of favourite things or even hard things and then painting around those emotional responses to that and adding symbols or elements of those memories to my work. I work in acrylic mostly, on canvas, and I love acrylics cause they are so easy to layer and they dry so quick.
Each piece of my work is a way for me to work out my own emotional state and also just to remove myself from my emotional state cause I get lost.
My works are inspired by my memories, sometimes blurry memories of my favourite or difficult or affecting times. I start a painting with the colour palette and make expressive marks on canvas. I then gradually build up something that’s an emotional response to how I’m feeling or how I felt.
Colour is key to my work, it’s often bright or neon colours, but I don’t think I’ve stuck rigidly to that, that’s just what appeals to me. When I start painting I like to go with the colour palette that appeals to me at the time or that is speaking to me as I’m making the piece. It is usually a palette that makes me feel happy or just sings and I get excited.
Tell us about your favourite artwork.
If I had to name a favourite painting, which is really hard, I think I’d probably say we two boys together clinging by David Hockney. As it’s the first painting I saw as a student that really spoke to me. I don’t know whether it’s the movement in the piece or the lettering or what, but I just loved it.
And still love the expressiveness of the brush marks and the lettering. And Just the Energy in it is fantastic and it was an entryway into work for me and everything about his work, all of it. So yeah, I think it’s that painting that sort of introduced me to David Hockney.
What did exhibiting at Colonnade House lead to & what have you been up to recently?
I’ve recently started making fabric sculptures. I made a hanging piece for Worthing Festival and that has brought in my textile background and painting was also a response to that because I’ve done design for a long time. Actually, I just don’t want to design, I just want to work and feel in the moment, rather than think about an outcome. So I don’t really sketch out plans, I did for the fabric sculpture that was an extension of my paintings in terms of colour, and shapes that I use but also a response to the sight and the trees around me and I wanted the movement and the colours to be lit up by the sky and the sun and I’ve found that’s also another way that I’ve really enjoyed expressing myself.
It’s amazing to have the support of Colonnade House because of the experience you get, because of the feedback of the public, feedback from your peers, meeting so many other artists and probably mostly because of the feedback, and help, assistance and support from Richard, Joe and Paula who are always there to give advice and just be on your side.