Up until recently Bristol based mixed-media artist Kerry Day’s focus has been on rendering the human form. These portraits are seductive, each one of her subjects, often nude, has some oddly arresting feature or presence. We are pleased to see, she has now turned her talents to plants, more specifically pot plants, and mostly cacti at that. Although she has featured plants before, they have only been as an accompaniment (see below) to people but now they get their very own dedicated portraits. Like much of her previous work, bold patterns and colours add support and interest to the piece. Plant Curator was intrigued to know how she works and what led to her decision to make the move from people to plants for her latest series.
PC: How did you come up with the idea for this series?
KD: I live in a flat with no garden so I fill it with lots of plants. I have over 20 cacti that I’ve grown from seed and numerous other leafy greens. I would occasionally sketch them, then one day I was having a bit of artist’s block with my figurative work so began drawing them. Then I decided to paint them and turn them into screen and lino prints. I’m really enjoying this new phase in my practice and can see it lasting for a while. I’m not completely finished with my figurative work though. I’ve done a couple of combinations of the two subjects before that I will definitely go back to.
PC: What techniques do you use?
KD: I mainly paint with oils and acrylics, screen print or do linocuts. For all of them i like to build up layers of colours, texture and pattern.
PC: You work mostly with people, was your approach or experience different with plant portraiture?
KD: Not particularly. Apart from people do tend to move a lot more!. The actual processes were the same.
Artist’s website: kerryday.co.uk
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