This issues Featured Friend is Brenda Procter. Brenda is predominantly a painter. She also uses printmaking to inform her painting. She lives and works in Scotland.
Brenda, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your passion for art:
I’ve painted from childhood and studied Fine Art at Newcastle University, afterwards I studied for a PGCE. I taught art and design in secondary schools but later moved into support for learning for children with disabilities, I loved the young people and the work we did. My husband was a farmer and we had two children. I was widowed fairly recently and my life changed again.
In my work I am interested in how things are changed by light, reflection, time and decay. I like to include different methods and objects my work. This is the biggest change of all, expressing my vision and joy in using visual media. Shared with the viewer as he or she forms their own ideas on seeing. I believe a work of art seen means that the artist and the viewer are sharing creation. In my paintings I want to express awareness, spontaneity and intimacy.
This approach applies to my prints too. I work into the etchings and collagraphs with paint or by varying tones in the printing process. I also collages prints together.
I have only been printing for about a year and it informs my painting. After working on them, they are all different. More like paintings really than prints.
All my prints are unique. I can’t imagine ever not wanting to work as an artist, it’s a way of life I can’t put down. The etchings are all from drawings, Shadows on the Lane, Trees at the Loch and the figure, “Dream”. I like to work on a large scale. One piece here is of Echo, one of a series Greek Myths. The other two (“The Lane” and “Trees at Drumlanrig” on the cover) are large, acrylic paintings. They are about natural forms (I love trees!) and show the effects of light and the beautiful changes by decay, in water on the horizontal picture and standing tree in the sunset on the vertical picture.
What are you currently working on/planning to work on?
I am extending my range of printing in every way. My painting is very much about trees and the way the shapes of trees grow and connect with each other and also how my emotion is expressed by their forms. Also by the way they stitch together the land and the sky.
Who is your favourite artist and/or what is your favourite art movement?
This is difficult as I love so many artists! I will name Marc Chagall, Kurt Schwitters, Piero della Francesco, David Hockney. I think my favourite art movement is Expressionism.
Are there any events/exhibitions upcoming that you’re particularly excited about?
I have two exhibitions coming up, one of my prints at Portpatrick Hub already accepted, and another print exhibition in Teesside which I have entered work for, (fingers crossed). I am looking for galleries to show work as the gallery I was an artist for has closed due to the death of its owner.
When did you become a Friend of the Hatton and why?
Earlier this year. I was isolated and wanted to talk and share art with other artists and people who were interested in art. I visit the arts centre in Dumfries to print and the staff there are all artists as well which is great, but I wanted to share with more people.
What is your favourite part of being a Friend of the Hatton Gallery?
Because I am a fairly new member and live quite a long train ride away from Newcastle, I cannot make up my mind. I love to visit the Hatton, it’s like going back to my artistic roots in the Fine Art department, and the Schwitters Wall is a marvellous creation in which I see different ideas every time.
If you’d like to be our “Featured Friend” in a future bulletin, email roger.newbrook@gmail.com and we’ll send you our questionnaire.
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