AMY HEALD

"In my work, I look at depicting representations of urban architecture in the form of local public houses. I’m interested in this, and my paintings are a way for me to understand more about the structure. The idea of public houses, in general, dates back centuries, and it has always been a representation of social life. Today, many pubs are occupied by buildings that have very effective working uses that date back to the industrial era. This is where my interest stems from the idea of this working structure centuries later becoming used as a social structure. I feel like in doing this, its identity and significance of its use during that working era can become lost. And all people recognize is the social use of the building. This is one of the critical drives for my work.

 

 I represent these structures on different scales, but I like to portray them on a large scale for the more finished work. This is because the architectures themselves are extensive (usually around 6 x 7ft), and there is just so much detail to include in one painting.

 

When painting, I often split my work into multiple canvases that make one image. This is an exciting take to painting as I can paint on one canvas at a time. However, as well as this it is also a practical move, it makes it easier for transport.

 

The paintings themselves depict buildings that I have discovered myself. On the canvas, they represent almost zoomed-in versions of the buildings with a bit of perspective, struggling to fit in the canvases I have provided. You can’t see the bottom, top, or side of the building, just a part of the building that I found interesting. I like this concept; I feel it allows my audience to pay closer attention to the details on these often abandoned, heritage-listed, and decayed structures.

 

Hopefully, I will be able to have a solo show in the future, and for this show, I will exhibit all of my large, scaled building paintings next to each other, filling a room. The large-scaled works would then be unmissable and hard to escape. The zoomed-in representations of them force the viewer to not only look at them but also, in a sense, can make them feel trapped by the sheer scale and zoomed-in quality." - Amy Heald