Artist Profile - Di Purser
Biography
Di graduated in Textiles from Loughborough College of Art and Design in 1971. She went on to become a print technician at Bristol Polytechnic (now U.W.E.) for three years before becoming a part time lecturer in Textile Design. More recently she has lectured part time in Art and Design at Shrewsbury College of Art and Design, taught AS/A Level Fine Art at Shrewsbury Sixth Form College and organised short painting courses at various centres up and down the country.
Artist Statement
I always find it difficult to talk about my own work, but having been an art teacher have no problem talking about everyone else’s. Since setting up the co-operative ‘Sanford Gallery’ with four other artists in April 2006 I have gradually withdrawn from teaching to try and concentrate on painting.
Over the years I have been inspired by many subjects which reflected my interests at the time; animals (particularly horses and chickens) and then initially tentatively with the idea of landscapes both mountains and town/cityscapes.
At the moment current obsessions are Lincoln to the east and Snowdonia to the west both accessible in a day from Shrewsbury and in their own way contained some stimulating but different subject matter. A fascination for ancient cathedrals harks back to ‘A’ level days with its history of architecture exam, mountains go back even further with the story of the first ascent of Everest at primary school (it is still the only lesson from then that I can clearly remember).
Lincoln proved more of a challenge in every sense, not well known to me, hard to get to, difficult to draw; from that first view of the city through its banal suburbia, to the powerful and symbolic west front of the cathedral. Every piece raised questions of which media to work in; acrylics, inks, pastels or pens. It usually ended up being a mixture of everything, and the images became more unnerving as they went on. The mountains around Cwm Idwal, Nant Ffrancon in comparison came and went in sketches and paintings; pleasurably and grandly in all weathers in their detached glory.