Karen Monaghan

I enjoy working with materials; manipulating paint, making marks, bashing metal, scratching, gouging (who doesn’t). After so many years of painting and making, it boils down to connections. Stories in pictures, memories of place, collective memories, they all lead to connectedness. I like to make repeated journeys both locally and throughout Scotland. The process of making the same walk/ run/ cycle leads to a sense of ownership of that space. But it is a shared space with a collective conscious which connects me to family, friends and strangers, wherever they are in the world. A spiritual knowing that they see the same sky. The repetition gives some sort of anchor and purpose to the process. Jewellery and metal work is inspired by the same thing. Add in some politics, world events, personal loss and it becomes a complex thing to put in a short statement. It’s just life. That’s all.