Amanda Wigglesworth

My abstract-expressive style is based on the experience of materials and the sensual nature of working with traditional oils and resins made from dammar and beeswax as well as modern plaster compounds.
I build up my paintings slowly over time, layer by layer. Using my long-established process, I apply a coat of oil paint then scrape passages away to create an interplay of dappled colours and then continue adding more paint mixed with resin building up an image.
My ideas are to create an image based on chance. Physically, I use painting tools which limit my control of the medium. By using scrapers and household brushes, a random selection of marks emerge, including broad patches of colour. I then use a squeegee and wipe it across the image with a diluted oil mix. It creates distinctive variety of marks and broad patches of colour.
I don’t have a specific picture in mind when I start. I like the fact that it is not planned. The method of random choice and chance, its build-up and destruction produces an abstract image but never a pre-determined one.
 

I had my family young and so went to art college and university in my 30s. 

My art college In Macclesfield , Cheshire was a seminal period in my life. The creative process mirrored my personal development as an artist in that my paintings embody my chaotic and spontaneous nature, which is reflected in my unplanned works.