Second Wind

17 Jul

The last 8 or 9 months has been a very uncomfortable period for me as an artist as I’ve been moving through a big old creative block and a massive transition within my practice.

But… I’m coming out the other side :). Starting a blog seems like a useful thing to do, somewhere to put those difficult feelings, half-baked ideas and progress images and hopefully begin some dialogue around them with others.

For the first time in 18 years, I’ve taken a step back from what’s been a full-on exhibition schedule, to allow myself space without external pressure to have a proper recalibration in terms of where I want to go next creatively. I’d love to connect with others who’ve gone through or are in the midst of a big pivot.

I’m planning on using this space to:

Share more background on the inspiration behind the experimental work I’m making in the studio this year
Reflect on the creative process more generally, and share art, literature and music by others which gets me going
I travel a lot so some of the inspiring stuff I experience around the world
Connect in a more in depth way with my new subscribers as well as those who’ve followed me over here from Instagram or my mailing list.

Watching my mum's decline through dementia over the last few years has made me think a lot about memory and previous identities (and the loss of both) and I've become increasingly motivated to connect with these in my work.

I'm currently drawing only from my imagination, through memories of emotion and lived experience and am dedicating 2025 to producing a new body of work in this vein. It promises to be raw, wild and pretty weird - all a bit scary and vulnerable but also hugely liberating and real.

I'll be sharing words and progress images here as I build the ideas for an exhibition towards the end of the year.

These are the first drawings I made this year from a place of trying to summon an emotion from memory. I’ve called them the Carry Me Home studies. For someone who’s so used to working from photographic reference, it’s been challenging but I’ve loved drawing from my intuition, just feeling my way through it.

These feel like a self-portrait but hope they speak to you in a more universal sense; someone who's jaded, who's taking a breath and a puff, contemplating everywhere she's been, the life lived so far. She's handing responsibility to a trusty beast who'll stoically take her 'home', wherever that is, maybe just full circle. There's also strong female energy, something unapologetic and a bit erotic about these I think.

I grew up with horses in rural West of Scotland, so they are a symbol of my childhood, and the smoking and the heels are a nod to my once hedonistic adulthood. I feel like these drawings honour the loss of both maybe.

Do these resonate with you? Am I in full midlife crisis I wonder !? Are you experiencing similar feelings around identity, loss and transition? Please drop me a line and let me know. It's where I'm finding inspiration at the moment.

Patsy Mcarthur