Guest Artist: Florence Penry-Jones, City & Guilds of London Art School

Florence Penry-Jones, Changing Light, Glow Worms and Irreversible Spell.

I am a 19-year-old mixed medium artist with a focus on painting. I am currently completing my foundation diploma in fine art at City & Guilds of London Art School. At the beginning of my art journey, before I had even considered a foundation course, art was a form of therapy for me. For the last 6 years, I have been struggling with a purging disorder. As I couldn’t understand my emotions and how to process both my own and those around me, I turned to a form of self-harm. Art is a way for me to escape that inability to translate emotions. Through my current project which explores the correlation between art and music, I can channel the emotions sparked by the music.

Process

I was initially inspired by album covers. I decided to consider the music and the soundtracks and to look at what you feel when experiencing the record. I then transformed this into a color scheme and then into the movements I use to paint a particular work. My process of picking a song to respond to is purely down to if I can't stop listening to how it infects the brain! I began to learn about psychology and how the brain responds to sound and color. I explored how to combine sound and color to emphasize one emotion or another.

Florence Penry-Jones, Changing Light

Title: Changing Light

Medium: acrylic on canvas

Dimensions: 90cm x 242cm

The song:  Changing Light

The band:  The Ironsides

For this painting, I wanted to create a sense of peace and joy. I found the song so rich that I wanted to immediately reflect that within a painting. It felt like the sound was coming towards you and I wanted to use undulating brushstrokes to really emphasize that aspect of the music. Strangely enough, I was inspired by a rusty table. It made me feel happy and I wanted that color within the painting along with a bright blue that symbolizes calm, prompting calmness in the human brain.

Florence Penry-Jones, Glow Worms

Title: Glow Worms

Medium: acrylic on lining paper

Dimensions: 197 cm x 113 cm

The album: Just Another Diamond Day

Singer: Vashti Bunyan

The album is a folk album that reminded me of children's rhymes and that childish oblivion when wandering around a garden or the woods, something that I grew up doing as I spent my childhood in the woods making up stories and fantasy worlds, immersed in that green kingdom. This album really reflected that. I immediately knew I needed to paint it. I wanted to create avenues that glow worms could follow as a sort of map for their burrowing.

Florence Penry-Jones, Irremovable Spell

Title: Irremovable Spell

Medium: Acrylic on lining paper

Dimensions: 164cm x 169cm

Album: Howl's Moving Castle soundtrack

Song: Irremovable Spell

This painting was so much fun to do. I was almost dancing to the music and I felt the emotions being pulled out as I painted. This is the soundtrack to one of my childhood films. I wanted to express the love and despair through the use of red and the confusion with what is happening through the swirling mass. I used dry brush techniques to gain this grainy effect within the painting. I really hope to create more work like this soon. My aspiration as an artist is to continue my studies at City & Guilds of London School of Art and collaborate with a music artist to create work in response to their music. I hope to develop my work to include perhaps digital media and murals.

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