Patricia McParlin: Flux: The Shift of Seasons

My fascination with these shifting spaces could be traced back to a childhood book. On the front endpaper was a scene from nature in Summer; at the back, the same scene in Winter. I would sit, endlessly flicking between the two images, comparing the changes in the landscape. Some were minute, almost imperceptible, while others were momentous. I was compelled by what the seasons could do — how light, colour, atmosphere and form could transform the same landscape into something entirely different.

The works explore these transitions between Winter and Spring, Spring and Summer, Summer and Autumn, and Autumn and Winter. Rather than exploring the seasons, I am interested in the spaces in between — those moments when one state is gradually becoming another. A strong, almost architectural structure provides the framework for each composition. Against this sense of order, intuitive, gestural marks, line, texture and text are used to disrupt and shift the underlying structure. This process of building, disrupting, obscuring and revealing is central to the work. It mirrors the nature of seasonal changes — the gradual accumulation and disappearance of colour, light, texture and form, and the sense that something is always emerging as something else recedes.

I am interested in that sense of flux — the constant movement from one state to another, and the quiet moments in which that change becomes perceptible. These paintings are an exploration of this flux - transformation, impermanence and the liminal spaces in between.