Remembering the Bottlebrush Painting

Tracey Paterson is a British Australian artist, based in London. She grew up in Sydney and has lived in Canada, New Zealand, and now the UK for 14 years. For Tracey, the connection and constant translation between where she is from the different cultures and countries she has lived in are a big part of her work. Tracey loves the small details of life and the quirky things that not everyone notices. Trying to understand and make sense of these contrasts is something that comes up in her work a lot. Her colourful palette is bright and vivid and expressive, and she chooses to present her art with bold colours and textures. The colours are chosen not to represent true life, but to express how Tracey feels about the energy and memories evoked by what she is painting. Her technique is intuitive and does not necessarily follow the conventions and rules, but this is the way she is most able to tell the stories she wants her work to tell. I am not able to answer why I paint, it’s more a question of how could I not paint. I use painting to process a lot of things, from trying to understand how life works in my adopted home, or noticing the differences and documenting so many things that I still struggle to make sense of even after living in the UK for so long. I use painting to process the joy and colours I observe day to day, missing home, missing people and grief, feeling displaced or vivid memories from home that feel very different from the life I observe here. Or just my feelings about my life and what I notice. I create artwork that expresses how I feel and I want my work to be joyous and uplifting. Sometimes it is about reframing how I feel, in the grey dark days I want to paint brighter and wilder to lift my spirits and remember the brighter days that I know are coming soon. I want anyone looking at my work to feel that energy and feel uplifted and energised too.