I was brought up in the Swansea area of South Wales and lived in London for three years as a student and two years as a social worker. As soon as possible I moved back to Wales and since 1976 have been living on a small farm near the market town of Carmarthen in West Wales.
I am a largely self-taught artist. I discovered art when I was 17 when I was going through a period of depression. Playing with colour took me to another, more wholesome dimension. It became my passion.
Art was pushed out by work and other commitments from about age 24 and I came back to it again in a big way in 2008. From 2009 to 10 I did a number of local art courses run by the Extramural Department of Aberystwyth University. Most of them were taught by local artist Andrew McCutcheon, who encouraged me to work abstractly.
In my previous career, I worked for 10 years as a social worker, in London, Neath and Swansea. I have worked as a hypnotherapist, healer and workshop leader since 2000.
In 2010 I set up my art business, Golden Hill Art and was awarded an EU grant to convert dilapidated outbuildings adjacent to our farmhouse into an art studio and gallery complex. The work was completed on the complex, which we named the Golden Hill Centre, in July 2011, when the centre was opened. It was very exciting to have so much space to paint and to display my work.
As an artist, it’s a joy for me to put paint on canvas and to create something new. I aim to express the immediacy of universal feelings through my paintings and to communicate them through colour and form to my audience. It’s exciting when a viewer understands the feelings I embody into my work and even more so when people see things that I must have woven into the picture at an unconscious level, things that move the person to appreciate.
I hope that my art always embodies my passion for colour and light. For me, it conveys the love and the joy of my soul in colour. Each painting expresses a movement towards joy. This reflection of my love of colour is something I grew into; is part of my spiritual journey.
My paintings are usually built up with layers of colour, giving a rich, textured effect. I love to create new forms inspired by the beauty of nature. The close rapport I have developed with my unconscious mind through my therapy training and work can also be seen reflected in my artwork.
Over the last 8 -10 years I have majored in art and left most of the therapy work to my husband Peter, who is also an accredited therapist.
This is what an eloquent admirer of my work wrote:
“We are all on a journey in life… just as the light takes time to travel to create life, so we all travel on a journey to find that light… a light that transforms our banal world into a rich tapestry of colour, which vibrates with the richness of life, sings with harmonies and beats with a pulse of joy in a world which would otherwise be dull with monotony. In her art, Hazel vibrates the culmination of that journey in a riotous celebration of colour.”
I am also a harpist, songwriter, poet and gardener, although now, art leaves me with little time for the first three of these things.
You say you discovered art when you were 17 and going through a period of depression. Can you tell us more about that? Was there a moment of realization that you wanted to pursue art?
Hazel: My paintings at age 17 were therapeutic. Playing with colour took me into another dimension. It became one of my passions.
I’d never thought of doing art as a career. I didn’t even do it as a subject at school as it clashed with a more ‘important’ subject.
Back in the 1990s, when I was trying to work out what my life purpose was, I read a book on the subject that advised the seeker to ask themselves what thing they had done in their life that completely absorbed them and gave them joy. While there were several possibilities for me, art was the only true runner. I was shocked by that, as I’d never thought of pursuing a career in art. At that stage, I hadn’t painted since I was 24 and had seen art as being just a hobby.
Despite that revelation, I was looking for a career that would bring me more professional recognition and financial rewards. It wasn’t until 2008, after life had put me through the wringer, that I returned to painting again in a big way.
In the autumn of 2007, I was doing an energy healing course in Iceland, when I realised that I’d been drifting, letting life drag me away from working with my strengths and instead I was struggling with work that was demanding so much in areas in which I was actually quite weak! I had an ‘ah ha’ experience, in which I saw that a huge trauma in a past life, had made me fear really following my heart’s desire.
I know past lives are a controversial subject, yet working with them, even if I regard the whole concept as a metaphor, seems to enable me to release a lot that had previously held me back.
This experience was a turning point for me. This was the moment when I realised I wanted to pursue art again.
Tell us about your artwork, style, subject matter etc.
Hazel: My artwork is intuitive. Mostly now it is shaped by an interaction between the support I’m working on, e.g. paper, canvas etc., the colours I use, the feelings I have about the colours and the ideas I want to convey. So basically I paint the way I feel. The interaction of the colours with my feeling is of prime importance to me and the style is secondary to what I feel will make the painting work.
I have painted in a variety of different styles. In taking up art again, I had so much more to learn! My previous paintings had been done with watercolours and oils. Since that time, acrylic paints had become much more versatile and widely used.
In 2008 I did some landscape courses with a local artist. As a result, I came to the conclusion that representational art was not my forte.
From 2009 to 2010 when I was experimenting with the use of acrylics, I did a number of university extramural art courses. Most of them were taught by local artist Andrew McCutcheon, who encouraged me to work abstractly. These courses give me a variety of tools and techniques to create with acrylic paints.
I also experimented with a number of different styles. In 2008 I started off with a pointillist style as I had always loved the impressionists. This phase lasted for several years and I still bring elements of it into my work.
For six or seven years I also did a lot of impasto work building up many layers in colour.
I love the fluid quality of acrylics and experimented In creating fluid art from 2009 onwards, before the days of pouring mediums and other current fluid art trends. I have also worked with pouring mediums over the last 4 years. I like to use fluid paint to create interesting shapes and colour contrasts.
Ultimately my aim is to create an artwork that I find interesting and love to look at. I hope that other people will enjoy looking at it too.
Could you walk us through your process? How much planning do you do before you jump into creating an artwork? If you do, what are you trying to solve at each stage of it?
Hazel: Now I do very little planning before beginning a painting, apart from choosing what colours I would like to use and having some concept of an idea or feeling I want to express.
I have a close rapport with my unconscious mind and creative source. The best paintings I create are when I allow these inner forces to come out to play without planning it all out beforehand.
It usually takes several layers of paint and often a modification of the colour scheme before a painting is completed to my satisfaction.
I usually work on a few paintings at the same time. I start playfully, using colour in a way that appeals to me. When I get to the final stages of the work I focus all my attention on ensuring that the piece expresses what I want to create. This can take several days, several weeks or several months depending on the size of the painting.
What is the work you’ve done that you’re the most excited about?
Hazel: I tend to be excited about every piece that I work on. It’s always the one that is fresh in my imagination that I am most excited about. Although I do have favourites that I have completed.
One is a large piece on canvas that I’ve called ‘Treasures of the Deep‘.
This title is based on the Shakespearean passage:
“Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade
but doth suffer a sea change,
into something rich and strange.”
What else inspires your work?
Hazel: Seeing wonderful art inspires my work. I love seeing how other artists create. As I live in the countryside in West Wales in the UK I rarely get to see live exhibitions. I do enjoy viewing the work of contemporary artists on social media.
The landscape where I live, up in the hills, also impacts my work, although I make no attempts at realism.
Part of my impetus to create colourful artworks was the fact that West Wales is so often wet and the skies are so often grey. I have a hunger for colour and in the winter, I’m so glad that I am surrounded by colourful paintings.
You say you aim to express the immediacy of universal feelings through your paintings and to communicate them through colour and form to your audience. Is there a message you are trying to send with each piece?
Hazel: If anything, the message that I want to communicate through my art is: that amidst all the troubles of the world we live in, there is still beauty, colour and light all around us waiting for us to connect to.
You are also a harpist, songwriter, poet and gardener. How do you balance your time being creative in multiple fields, and do you consider these as a different way to express yourself?
Hazel: Over the last 20 years I’ve been challenged to decide which of these four areas of creativity I wanted to major in. My decision to focus on art came from the experience I had while I was in Iceland. That then naturally led to my roles as a harpist, songwriter and poet, being largely pushed aside.
Gardening is still an important part of my life from spring to autumn. I like to be outside when I can. I love flowers and also like to grow fresh vegetables, salads, brassicas and especially Russian Kale, which flourishes in the Welsh climate.
Who are a few artists/people that really inspire you right now, and why?
Hazel: When I took up art again I was very inspired by Fauvism and the Impressionists.
Currently, I like and appreciate a lot of the artwork on social media, for example, Instagram artists David Dolan and Nicole Ondrush . I have to confess I am unable to devote much time to Instagram.
I am also inspired by friends and family who believe in the value of my work and encourage me to persist with my artwork.
What memorable responses have you had to your work?
Hazel: “Wow! Fantastic!” Is one of the wonderful kinds of responses I’m thankful to get sometimes.
I really appreciate how beautifully an eloquent admirer of my artwork described my work. They wrote:
“We are all on a journey in life… just as the light takes time to travel to create life, so we all travel on a journey to find that light… a light that transforms our banal world into a rich tapestry of colour, which vibrates with the richness of life, sings with harmonies and beats with a pulse of joy in a world which would otherwise be dull with monotony. In her art, Hazel vibrates the culmination of that journey in a riotous celebration of colour.”
Do you see art serving a purpose beyond art?
Hazel: I know that art has definite therapeutic value. Authentic self-expression is also a liberating experience. Art can enable us to find our own voice and to express something of value from our deep inner source.
What’s next on the horizon for you Hazel?
Hazel: In the future, I want to focus on attracting more people to my gallery so I can share my work. I am a prolific artist and also need to focus more on marketing and selling my art.
I am planning to run a monthly art giveaway starting this autumn, to enable more people to enjoy my art. I also want to organise a monthly sale of selected works. Finding the time and developing the skills to focus on promotion is a challenge to me.
After a long break from my therapy/healing work over the Covid 19 lockdowns, I am also accepting new clients again.
I also hope to organise a charity auction of my artwork and to invite other artists to participate. And there are always more paintings. I seem to come up with an inexhaustible supply of ideas to express.
To find out more about Hazel and her art, please check:
Website
Thank you!