| Online gallery |  |  |  |  |  |  | Click on a thumbnail to see a full-size version of the exhibit |
My work is created through a personal and intuitive response to the landscapes and seascapes of Yorkshire. Yet I am also compelled by visual elements of modern day urban life; graffiti, decaying buildings and neglected areas of towns and cities. I was born in Leeds in 1979, where I spent large quantities of time in a nearby woods. They were magical, alluring, and mysterious, yet safe. This juxtaposition of natural world and city life has instilled in me a love of both, yet moving to the smaller town of Scarborough at the age of nine meant that landscape prevailed. The paintings begin in the landscape, as I often spend time walking and sketching outdoors, returning to the same places again and again. The lines and forms then become etched in the memory, resounding in the mind long after the experience itself. In the studio I use oil and oilbars on canvas, combining gestural marks and an evocative use of colour, striving to capture the visual essence of linear rhythms found in nature. I seek to translate a tangible atmosphere of land and sea, yet line and colour in a formal context alone is equally important to me. I am strongly influenced by the Abstract Expressionists, and the St.Ives artists such as Patrick Heron and Peter Lanyon, who integrated a love of landscape with formal developments and concepts of purity. Janine Baldwin | 
