Nell Pearson Watershed

My portraits seek to encapsulate the watershed between adolescence and adulthood. The bleeding, dribbling stains of watercolour reveal the fragility and tenderness of this defining segue. The sparse incomplete traces of paint on the breath of the raw, chalky paper are tailored to the incompletion of self, the nakedness of uncertainty. My intimate relationship with each subject rendered an honesty and sincerity in their faces, captured in moments of deep emotion and vulnerability.

Art is often a vicarious exploration of oneself. Where we traffic into subject matter, through tone and colour, the truth dribbles out obliquely. With watercolour, my aim is to reveal, and my practice is to conceal. On these occasions we enter art to hide within it. It’s where we go to save ourselves.