Legacy Paintingsin the studio
A series that revisits four of my Cornish grandmother’s numerous oil paintings on board: seascape, still life with hydrangeas, object in landscape, boat in a muddy creek, by Dorothea Elgar Coode, 1902 – 1990, (aka DEC) used here as sites of reflection.
The work comprises my tribute, using gouache, to the paintings, a deconstruction and grid made from photographs of the four pieces, 256 smaller paintings in oils, a series of re-paintings chosen by DEC’s two daughters, my mother and my aunt, myself as only grand-daughter and my own two daughters, (following the mitochondrial line) – resulting in a series of 14 large oil paintings, to be seen together, in a series. In the process of painting, (teaching myself to use oil paints from scratch, during lockdown), I made sound recording of myself ‘speaking’ to DEC, in a reflective commentary on her compelling need to paint, suppressed family ambitions and the curious nature of painting itself.
