“My oil paintings are robust and totally different and unique. They do not follow any commercial pathways. They display originality with a unique flair. I work with a palette knife, brushes and play with a multitude of colours creating thick textures and have a sprightly creativity for pattern, punctuated by exciting tones.”
“Colour is an exhilarating beauty. Fungi on the stone or twists in the timber, I will incorporate this detail amidst the impressionism and woven emotion of textural movement. I hold a keen eye for beauty. Water falling down, meandering rivers, braiding is chaotic and what I am interested in. The Guardian, reviewing my illustrations in Macfaddion’s Finest Hour’, wrote:
‘Hilary paints jewel-like colours and highly detailed, textural patterning, which tempts children to want to stroke the feathers and fur. The patterning is unique. She tempts animation through her characters, draws chaos in her patterning, charisma in her rationale, empathy in the stories and humour in her illustrations.’
“Crespuscular interference in the natural world, the spilling of water and erosion of landscape to the sequencing scales on a reptile is what can be seen in my oil paintings – and for that matter all my work – but with a unique flair for composition and pattern. I have just finished a salmon leaping up the falls showing the pendulum swing of the water spilling down, the action, the momentum and gravity. Chaotic patterning can be found in all my work. Celtic influences can be seen in a lot of my work also.”
“I also write poetry and wrote ‘The Plume and Pheasant‘ to support the campaign against a waste incinerator being built in the Aire and Worth river valleys at Keighley”:
The Plume and Pheasant
The plume rises above as a six-headed ogre,
Spiking everything in its wake. It plays poker.
Like an eagle with fish, its claws will stick in,
To yours and my skin.
This beautiful valley with trout in its river,
Buzzards swing in high limits, free-falling, quiver,
Above, where the deer graze on soft, mossy ledges,
Crested newts flickering, orange and spotted
In their homes, well allotted.
All will go.
The only flow will be the black plume which like a disease,
Will spread.
Devouring our minds, our flow, our bread.
Placing an incinerator in a river valley lush,
Where hanging mists and precipitation naturally brush,
The orchids and toads alike, with rainbow orbs.
No more. The black plume, we will absorb.
Killing fields! Brad Met.
What a disaster, a seer says.
‘You will carry this to your death.’
See also the main profile of this artist at Hilary Roper.