Born 1976, Leicester, UK. Lives and works in Penzance, Cornwall, UK.

The subject of Wilson’s creative practice is her physical and emotional experience of running and walking in the landscape. ‘The nature of the self can only be understood through walking’ (Andrews, Kerri Wanderers). Wilson’s use of traditional materials connects her to her paintings and to nature. The physical exertion of disciplined and daily exercise, alongside the domestic work of grinding and blending gesso, pigments and egg tempera, filters into the shapes and marks she makes when drawing. In a wider sense she explores her own female experience, by pushing her body physically and emotionally, as her paintings become direct responses to, and memories of, her relationship with the landscape.

Handmade egg tempera, oil paint and traditional gesso, although time consuming to prepare, are tactile surfaces to work on and paint with. The smooth gesso, once sanded and polished, becomes a delicate and precious surface, even though it has undergone a rigorous process to build up the many layers. The preparation of surfaces and paint becomes a ritual at the start of each working day, greeting her materials before the painting begins.

Wilson is engaged with the physical process of making a drawing: observing, decision making, mark making, erasing, layering, dissolving. Excited by the time experienced in a drawing, a palimpsest, Wilson seeks a balance between scrutinizing a form, and building up webs of lines, marks and mistakes that can be covered or uncovered. Wilson’s practice stems from a background of academic drawing of the figure both in life class and studio settings. Constantly looking, for detail, for a whole shape, for a simplification, Wilson is excited by the accumulative process of making a drawing; lines that are crucial and then become superfluous as the drawing evolves, and she starts to look more carefully. Working directly from observation has always remained central to her practice, yet she began to find a frustration in working from the model, of drawing an anonymous body placed a long distance from her and her charcoal. The artist seeks a greater connection, not with the model, but with herself, a visual conversation that needs something more personal. The experiential side of making a drawing is becoming increasingly important, turning towards herself as a starting point.

Wilson is inspired by the layering process inherent to drawing. A drawing becomes an architectural dig, a web of lines and marks, evidence of time spent looking and re-evaluating. Many marks remain, some disappear, others become ghosts underneath. They become a spatial map of the time spent within a drawing. The artist wants to see mistakes, to see the decision making process, to see the honesty and human qualities in a drawing. She wants to see what is happening underneath a surface.

Wilson enjoys the muted colours of her locality, the grey blue of granite against the grey green of the sea, and the purple grey smudges of the sky. Crepuscular colours and dissolving shapes at the peripheries of each day, especially at dawn, have an impact on her visual work.

Wilson has a background in school-based artist residencies and teaching, working predominantly in secondary, higher and further education, and adult learning settings. She has taught both full time and in a peripatetic capacity, facilitating projects in community environments for all ages and abilities, alongside clients with visual, physical and learning impairments. Her workshops have a strong emphasis on developing drawing skills.

Working from her studio on the outskirts of Penzance in West Cornwall, Wilson is currently a recipient of Cultivator Cornwall EU funding.