In the zone.

Almost without exception, artists think deeply about their work. And again, almost all artists draw on a deep well of life experiences, their worldview, and the sense they currently make of our existence.

Here is an artist who speaks with clarity about the inner/outer world of body, mind and spirit which informs her art. When you spend a moment with her work you quickly become aware that each painting is also part of that world. Partitions and boundaries are flimsy.

This beautiful image was created by Christine Forbes, a Sussex-based artist who currently exhibits at the Sussex Makers 2019 exhibition. Christine has used inks on paper in this work.

I was struck by the ways in which outlines (form) and infill (tones) slip behind and in front of each other. The effect could be confusing, but it isn't. Instead we are again presented with the experience of being in the presence of these flowers and stems.

When we look at something (with all the to-and-fro of 'seeing' and 'seeing as') we realise how artificial boundary lines are. The flower I gaze at doesn't have an outline; I create that dark grey line in my head. It helps me recognise what I am seeing as a flower. But the reality, the truth is that my eye receives a pattern of colours which shimmer and slip. If I can train myself to see this, there is real joy to be discovered.

Christine's work helps us in this movement. It is almost as though the colours have shaken themselves free of the outlines to show their true nature. But the outlines are still there. Until we achieve some higher awareness, outlines will always feature in the ways we engage with the world around us.

It has often been said that the artist does not paint a flower; s/he paints the idea of a flower. This painting makes me want to take that further: here is a representation of the idea of a flower.

Christine's website, like her art, is simple and beautiful. In a few words she explains that worldview I wrote of at the top of this piece.

I warmly commend her work.

http://christineforbes.co.uk/

Holy

(Low resolution image taken on a phone camera)

Sin Mui Chong-Martin is a Worthing based artist, originally from Malaysia with her roots in China. Her work is varied and defies being placed in a single category.

This entrancing print takes for its subject the highest mountain in Malaysia - Gunung Kinabalu. Like many mountains around the world Kinabalu is a holy place, and is focal to Sin Mui's memories of her homeland. She has created the image using a photopolymer plate (a resin-based plate which reacts to light) and has completed the print with hand-colouring.

Holiness is an interesting concept, and makes a fascinating subject in art. The popular understanding of the word means being devout or god-like, but the reality is quite different. Holiness is about being set apart from the ordinary and about being within a presence - a presence which is indeed Good and True and Beautiful. And Holiness is far from safe; it has a dangerous quality about it, which one approaches with caution and reverence.

Sin Mui has presented this holy place to us, rising out of the horizon, surrounded by the fertile grasslands and meadows of the Kinabalu Park World Heritage Site. She has also lined the bottom of the main image with a series of seven boxes containing studies of the fruits and flowers typical of that region - Slipper Orchids, Pitcher Plants and the Rafflesia Plant.

I had the chance to talk to Sin Mui about this piece, and she told me how for her it represents memories. The indigenous plant life, the boxes of the market places, and the ever-present Mountain visible from so much of the peninsula, are all there. The slightly blurred and incomplete result of the printing technique emphasises the nature of remembered sights and experiences.

Do you think at first that the line of floral species in their boxes seems out of place somehow? Well it might if this were a simple landscape: a representation of a parcel of land. But this is more. This is a memory of being in the presence of holiness. Sin Mui told me that as a small child she received a Roman Catholic schooling, but for most of her life her religious culture had been Buddhist. So I am quite sure that the fact those boxes put me in mind of the predella paintings around Italianate altarpieces had nothing to do with her artistic intentions. And yet that's exactly what they remind me of. Those small images which expound on the subject of the main altar image, or populate the Court of Heaven indicated in the main panel. A happy coincidence.

This particular image, and more of Sin Mui's beautiful work, can be seen at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery until 21 December 2019.

smcmartin.60@gmail.com

http://www.sinmuichong-martin.com/

Together.

This is an intriguing artwork.

The artist is Yves Preston. She exhibits with Sussex Printmakers.

Yves has created something very pleasing here. This is a piece which would sit well in someones living space, and would start a few conversations.

She has brought together two very different techniques: lino-cut printing, and some fluid colour-field work. They are different in appearance and different in operation too.

Printmakers will often tell you how tricky and uncooperative even the most carefully prepared matrix can be. Edges bleed. Rogue elements can appear (and disappear) from nowhere. And yet there is also something predictable about printing. By and large, what appears on the paper is what the artist intended. This is what we find in the lower half of this artwork. In the upper half is a disc of colour. Yves has created this by applying a mixture of inks and alcohol to non-absorbant paper. To say the least, this will have been a highly unstable combination. The inks will swirl and spread, and finally be deposited as the alcohol evaporates. The artist might set the process going, but the result is largely outside of her/his control.

So here we have a monochrome, sharply-defined print of an organic object ... brought into contact with a regular geometric shape of fluid and indeterminate colour.

How are we going to engage with this?

We could begin by asking how the two halves speak to each other. Or do they? Certainly, there seems to be some tension between the two elements. Part of our brain wants to settle on one or the other. We almost find ourselves flitting between the two. Simply doing that causes us to reflect on the contrasting natures of the techniques. One seems to communicate information with its clear lines; the other ... well, it strikes us as resembling more closely what life is like: a little bit messy and hard to tie down.

But what happens if we try to bring the two together as Yves has done? After all, this is one image. I think that a lot of us start to create stories at this point; narratives which explain how they co-exist - "This insect is gazing at the moon" and so on. Some of us will want to resist that urge and sit with the artwork longer. Who knows what insights it might offer?

For me, Yves' work is a good example of the way art can stretch and prompt us. And she has achieved this with a great economy of content. Less able artists would have been tempted to fill the frame, telling us how we ought to be reading their work.