Boo Mallinso

Boo’s paintings act as a visual diary and a way of recording her everyday walks and journeys through the landscape. When walking we absorb the sights, sounds and smells and they come together to form a very strong memory of place. Our minds can drift and wander yet we are very much in the present.  Memories of a repeated walk along a known pathway, the distant horizon, the dramatic changes of colour and light from one moment to the next, day to day, season to season, these immersive encounters with the natural world form the starting point of Boo’s paintings. Some paintings remain very close to their origins, hinting at a place visited or remembered.  These paintings are often smaller and more gestural, translating an idea quickly and embracing chance and accident.  Other paintings evolve slowly and are reworked, building up the surface organically and allowing Boo to translate ambiguous images into new compositions.  They are still about a visual encounter with the landscape yet there is a process of simplification, allowing her to explore colour and abstraction and to move intuitively between the real and the imaginary.   This ambiguity allows the viewer the freedom to put their own interpretation into the paintings and be reminded of their own experiences of being within the landscape. Boo studied Fine Art at The Byam Shaw School of Art and The City of Guilds London Art School.  She moved from London to Dorset in 2002.