About Me!
I have had a passion for painting & drawing since my days at school. In 2007 I was given the wonderful opportunity to further my art by studying for a degree in fine art at The University of Northampton. In 2010 I completed 3 years at The University of Northampton gaining a first class BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art Painting. In 2011 I completed an MA in Fine Art also at the University of Northampton.
The process of transforming paint and other materials into images continues to compel and challenge me. Over the years, that process has led me from realistic drawing & painting to most recently through my degree course the pursuit of experimental abstract processes, eventually going back to realism. Painting fills me with a sense of well-being, and has proven to be a satisfying way for me to translate my visual ideas into a physical reality.
ANGELA STANBRIDGE - TULIPMANIA
Degree Show
For the last two years my focus has been on nature in particular plants & flowers. Nature represents for me, the design in life. I am intrigued by forms and the values held within. A flower shows everything from the seeds, stem, bud, and blossom, then returning to the earth to begin a new cycle of birth-life-death.
Nature is ever changing; there is beauty to behold in every step. Each of us has the choice of simply seeing a flower or something much more. I love to take a flower and enhance its drama, which can allow you to view it in a completely different way.
This year I have focused on tulips in particular dead or dying tulips. I came across the idea of photographing dead tulips by accident. To begin with I had been photographing tulips in the traditional way taking many images at the Keukenhof gardens in Holland. I then began buying tulips to photograph then with strong shadows. I noticed that as they died the colours became more intense and the petals started to twist into very interesting shapes with distinct contours and lines beginning to appear. I was about to throw out a bunch of tulips when I decided to try photographing them, throwing them on the ground I began taking close up photos. When photographed in black and white they also provide amazing tonal differences giving patterns of light and shade. My images started out being about colour and form but they very quickly became about tone and form.
My dead tulips are based on the use of wilted or dead tulips as the subject matter which can be likened to the genre of the ‘Memento mori’ artists of the 17th century who included some kind of symbol of mortality in each picture, i.e. a skull, or more subtly a flower losing its petals. The Latin phrase translates as "Remember you must die" the purpose being to remind people of the inevitability of death, and thereby their own mortality, taking the transience of life idea to its most extreme. Flowers begin beautiful and perfectly formed; blooms into their own, then one day wither away, leaving behind a dried petal in remembrance of what they once were. © Angela Stanbridge
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