For Bronwyn Birthistle, painting is a fluid and intuitive process, a way of “unriddling” relational puzzles. Often her artworks are inspired by her poetry and dreams. Other times they emerge from surprising connections she makes in the natural landscape. Bronwyn is fascinated by how the cosmos arranges itself in perfect balance – both at macro and micro levels.
With an affinity for the edgy, the dangerous and the unknown, she is humbled by how these elements make the world larger, darker and more fantastic than our minds can ever comprehend. Bronwyn loves to find harmony in chaos. Some of her paintings portray dark skies, multiple moons, craggy mountains and interstellar beings. Her imagination inhabits the kind of wildness where anything can happen.
My Art Practice:
I grew up in Glasgow surrounded by both architectural and natural beauty: startling stained-glass windows, grand cathedrals, rugged mountains and impossibly deep lochs. Art has been my secret companion for most of my life, a beloved playmate in my childhood and teens, put away for more ‘practical’ pursuits in adulthood.
A few years ago, art sashayed back into the foreground after a provocative dare by my husband who is a professional artist. I had just watched him dash off a painting with an orange background and some black markings. I didn’t think it was his best work, and I told him so. He said to me, “Go and see if you can do better.” As a joke, I sloshed some orange wash on a canvas, dipped my brush in black paint and quickly flourished it about saying, “Dah-dah! How easy is that?”
We both had a laugh, so, as a joke, my husband framed it and hung it in our gallery with his paintings. Incredibly, it sold not long after. It was the beginning of a curiosity in me that soon grew into a passion where whole days disappeared behind the easel, exploring different media and techniques. We hung more of my paintings in the gallery, and they sold too.
I make art because it pleases me and perhaps because it pleases art to express itself through me. For me, it’s like exploring a mysterious vocabulary with far more words than our spoken or written language. It’s almost a vice for me – an irresistible habit.
I work in an outdoor studio, keep company with wrens and look to my garden for colours. I love to experiment with new techniques and textures, such as applying paint with feathers, fingers and leaves. My painting is always an unplanned process with unpredictable consequences.