Valerie Beddington-Hooker
A graduate of the Royal College of Art. Subsequently went on to teach fine art painting for 30 years, the last 10 of those, I successfully ran a painting department in a school in Croydon, London. As an artist I have exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally. Organising many photographic exhibitions in the UK and the USA. My curiosity and fascination with the human condition has never diminished. Even as a child I was trying to understand what it meant to be alive. A phrase always stuck in my subconscious, “too late I remember tomorrow”, and this idea of many ways of experiencing time.

Here is a poem, which has meant a lot to me, and I share it with you
from "Days" by Philip Larkin

"What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?"

I am motivated by the joy of creation and the wonder at all that is before us. Examining the differences between illusion and delusion, we search for our own sense of Eden.

The archetypal image of the garden, has become a powerful one for me. I have opened a Garden Gallery known as the Garden of Lost Memories in France, next to the Chateau of La Rochefoucauld in Charente, near Angouleme. My work is intensely spiritual and I could not find a suitable venue to show my images in England. I wanted to show my work in nature in my garden of Eden, and not in a shop. This way for me is a good one, to meet people naturally and allow my work to be seen. The Garden Gallery is an atelier or workshop for I paint every day outside. I use allegory and metaphor to draw together contemporary issues. It is exciting for me to use antique methods and draw on the depths of artistic tradition, and archetypal concepts that are fundamentally embedded in our culture.

Often working in sequences using abstract concepts such as justice, conscience, disarming innocence, a sequence about gun and knife crime our children are experiencing. I look for the boundaries of freedom experienced physically, psychologically and politically. These pressures that mould and shape society and change the way we live. Hence a new genre I am working on, which I shall define as “political landscapes”, referring to the integration of time, politics, power and sex. My work tells of our life’s journey. Re-evaluating and questioning our shared values as we strive to establish in the 21st century a society that is compassionate, responsible and just.

 

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