Gertie Young
gertieyoung@hotmail.com
0755 7770953
Gertie Young at Bankside Gallery
PERSONAL STATEMENT, TECHNIQUES AND OTHER THOUGHTS
Sometimes Professor Fox would say "So – we don't know things? Isn't that exciting? We can go and find out!" As if not knowing things was a magical springboard for simply and confidently diving into the unknown.
Well I’m not a natural diver and have to support myself with a range of small rituals before stepping off into the unconscious. I take my steps. Putting away my paints from the last piece. Refreshing my water pots. Tying on my short apron. Finding something to listen to on the radio. Making unrelated dabblings in my scribble book. Throwing things away, tidying, hoovering. All displacement activities of course designed to hypnotise and ease my self away from under my conscious mind. Shaky steps towards the unknown. My train passing though familiar stations on its way to somewhere else. Perhaps I might start to glue down a foothold, a pattern along a lower edge. A kind of lowering into a sleep that sinks ever deeper until it reaches a payload of colour and feeling and finally images unfurling of their own volition, sometimes drawing in familiar objects charged with numinous energy – a yellow vase, a Mexican tin star, a willow pattern bowl. But sometimes not – moving out further afield.
Here, things take their own time. The unconscious works at its own pace that is not dictated to by my own wants or needs. It speaks in allegories that may not be understood until long after. It takes up old themes and sweetens them.
I am totally unable to determine my subject matter and neither am I able to visualise my finished painting. I have come to realise that the logical part of my mind (which you would think could be ordered to paint something) is not, for me, the part that actually does the painting. I have of course in the past tried to paint by determining on a subject and at best I make a start and then I get stuck as I end up fighting internally about what should go where and criticise how it should be painted. I end up abandoning these directed efforts, move on and simply paint over them.
I often start at the bottom of my painting or in one area, building up a kind of foothold using collage or pattern. I find anything like repetitive and regular mark making hypnotic and soothing. It gives my hands something to do while some other part of me sinks away into the surface in front of me. Bigger areas emerge, things arise, shapes gather together. I sometimes use pieces of collage like stepping stones drawing me into the main body of the painting. They move me on and I might leave them or paint over them. Sometimes I prepare my own card by glueing and pressing together thick sheets of paper until I achieve a weight and depth that will tempt me to paint.
The only way for me to paint is by knowing nothing and expecting nothing. I plunge into a journey armed with just myself, my paints, scraps of images and my piece of card. Sometimes my hands know what to do, what goes where, sometimes my eyes add a shape or a colour. Everything is filtered through memories of things I may have previously seen or felt that now arise newly formed and different. I am present enjoying the sheer pleasure of painting but I am also aware of the sunlight through the skylight, the birds singing outside, the passing traffic, the bin men. I trust that I will be taken somewhere and that I will complete the journey, if not now then at some later time, no pressure. I leave the logical part outside to worry about stuff.
I’m an early riser and usually start by taking a coffee into my workshop. I like to catch a painting I might have ‘on the go’ unawares. I might spend time just looking at things. At some point I usually go for a walk. I paint every day and usually in the morning, but I don’t really have a strict routine that I stick to. Very often I have something bubbling along in the back of my mind during the day but I don’t know what it is going to be - just a feeling - so I need quiet times when I’m doing something else (gardening or washing up for instance) just to let whatever it is hatch in the warmth and darkness.
My subjects can crop up from anywhere and they continue until they stop. For instance, when I was a child I lost a toy aeroplane and went looking for it in the sheds and outhouses along the far end of our garden. Never found. But in my dream my father sprinkles tomato seeds and shows me a secret door behind the fridge (behind the ice cold of logic). It opens out onto an endless warehouse of paths lined with shelves. “Where is this?” I ask. “Monsoon” a dark voice tells me. At the start, near the entrance, I see baby toys that I barely remember from my childhood, a toy bear, a spinning top. They line the shelves, objects that become ever more familiar as I walk in. I remember a lost toy aeroplane and looking for it in sheds and outhouses. Never found. Still looking. He gave it away but I still paint it.
Over the last few years I have been a finalist in a variety of national and international competitions and exhibitions such as: The Royal Academy’s Summer Show, the National Open Art competition, the Society of Women Artists Annual Exhibition, the Sunday Times Watercolour competition, The New English Art Club exhibition, the Royal Society of British Artists exhibition, the Chelsea Art Society exhibition and the Royal Institute of painters in Watercolor exhibition. My paintings can be found in private collections in the USA, Oman, Switzerland, Germany, France and Spain as well as here in the UK.
gertieyoung@hotmail.com
0755 7770953
Gertie Young at Bankside Gallery
PERSONAL STATEMENT, TECHNIQUES AND OTHER THOUGHTS
Sometimes Professor Fox would say "So – we don't know things? Isn't that exciting? We can go and find out!" As if not knowing things was a magical springboard for simply and confidently diving into the unknown.
Well I’m not a natural diver and have to support myself with a range of small rituals before stepping off into the unconscious. I take my steps. Putting away my paints from the last piece. Refreshing my water pots. Tying on my short apron. Finding something to listen to on the radio. Making unrelated dabblings in my scribble book. Throwing things away, tidying, hoovering. All displacement activities of course designed to hypnotise and ease my self away from under my conscious mind. Shaky steps towards the unknown. My train passing though familiar stations on its way to somewhere else. Perhaps I might start to glue down a foothold, a pattern along a lower edge. A kind of lowering into a sleep that sinks ever deeper until it reaches a payload of colour and feeling and finally images unfurling of their own volition, sometimes drawing in familiar objects charged with numinous energy – a yellow vase, a Mexican tin star, a willow pattern bowl. But sometimes not – moving out further afield.
Here, things take their own time. The unconscious works at its own pace that is not dictated to by my own wants or needs. It speaks in allegories that may not be understood until long after. It takes up old themes and sweetens them.
I am totally unable to determine my subject matter and neither am I able to visualise my finished painting. I have come to realise that the logical part of my mind (which you would think could be ordered to paint something) is not, for me, the part that actually does the painting. I have of course in the past tried to paint by determining on a subject and at best I make a start and then I get stuck as I end up fighting internally about what should go where and criticise how it should be painted. I end up abandoning these directed efforts, move on and simply paint over them.
I often start at the bottom of my painting or in one area, building up a kind of foothold using collage or pattern. I find anything like repetitive and regular mark making hypnotic and soothing. It gives my hands something to do while some other part of me sinks away into the surface in front of me. Bigger areas emerge, things arise, shapes gather together. I sometimes use pieces of collage like stepping stones drawing me into the main body of the painting. They move me on and I might leave them or paint over them. Sometimes I prepare my own card by glueing and pressing together thick sheets of paper until I achieve a weight and depth that will tempt me to paint.
The only way for me to paint is by knowing nothing and expecting nothing. I plunge into a journey armed with just myself, my paints, scraps of images and my piece of card. Sometimes my hands know what to do, what goes where, sometimes my eyes add a shape or a colour. Everything is filtered through memories of things I may have previously seen or felt that now arise newly formed and different. I am present enjoying the sheer pleasure of painting but I am also aware of the sunlight through the skylight, the birds singing outside, the passing traffic, the bin men. I trust that I will be taken somewhere and that I will complete the journey, if not now then at some later time, no pressure. I leave the logical part outside to worry about stuff.
I’m an early riser and usually start by taking a coffee into my workshop. I like to catch a painting I might have ‘on the go’ unawares. I might spend time just looking at things. At some point I usually go for a walk. I paint every day and usually in the morning, but I don’t really have a strict routine that I stick to. Very often I have something bubbling along in the back of my mind during the day but I don’t know what it is going to be - just a feeling - so I need quiet times when I’m doing something else (gardening or washing up for instance) just to let whatever it is hatch in the warmth and darkness.
My subjects can crop up from anywhere and they continue until they stop. For instance, when I was a child I lost a toy aeroplane and went looking for it in the sheds and outhouses along the far end of our garden. Never found. But in my dream my father sprinkles tomato seeds and shows me a secret door behind the fridge (behind the ice cold of logic). It opens out onto an endless warehouse of paths lined with shelves. “Where is this?” I ask. “Monsoon” a dark voice tells me. At the start, near the entrance, I see baby toys that I barely remember from my childhood, a toy bear, a spinning top. They line the shelves, objects that become ever more familiar as I walk in. I remember a lost toy aeroplane and looking for it in sheds and outhouses. Never found. Still looking. He gave it away but I still paint it.
Over the last few years I have been a finalist in a variety of national and international competitions and exhibitions such as: The Royal Academy’s Summer Show, the National Open Art competition, the Society of Women Artists Annual Exhibition, the Sunday Times Watercolour competition, The New English Art Club exhibition, the Royal Society of British Artists exhibition, the Chelsea Art Society exhibition and the Royal Institute of painters in Watercolor exhibition. My paintings can be found in private collections in the USA, Oman, Switzerland, Germany, France and Spain as well as here in the UK.
Copyright © 2026 Gertie Young