Ann Marie Whitton, Professional Landscape Alumni
We asked mentee artist Ann Marie Whitton about her time at Newlyn School of Art and how her work has developed this year.
Tell us a little about what the Professional Landscape Programme meant to you.
The Professional Landscape Programme has given me the impetus to go away and get on with some more sewing and probably some more sculpture work. Being with everybody, you can bounce ideas off each other for a start. You have lots of support, and nobody's judgmental with your work.
Ann Marie Whitton's "The Book of Forgiveness"
Could you tell us about the work you’ve made, and how you made the transition into working with the “internal landscape”?
The house is my landscape, and I'm quite interested in what a house is or what a family is. It's brought up a lot of questions for me, really.
When my sister passed away at the beginning of the year, I decided to drop the landscape part and actually explore an inner landscape, which is all about myself and my sister.
Jesse Leroy Smith installing Ann Marie Whitton's "164 The House"
And how did that change your work?
So, I just got some inks and pens, and I drew straight from my head. It was totally an inner emotion, really. And the little copper work I do as well, which is also a building, a shed, I managed to get some of those in the RWA down at Bristol a couple of years ago. I got three in, and I did sell one, which I was quite thrilled about.
.jpg "A huge amount of ink drawings from the imagination of Ann Marie Whitton depicting her childhood with her sisiter")
Ann Marie Whitton's prolific ink drawings from memory
And I have to say, you do have wobbles when you make new work; the work I'm doing now is completely new, but I absolutely love it. The tutors here actually really said, "You need to do this." So I did it. The landscape course has really given me the chance to go, "Yeah, this is it."
It's just given me the confidence.
Ann Marie Whitton discussing her work with visitors to Tremenheere Gallery
Find out more about our Professional Landscape Programme here.
Find out more about Ann Marie Whitton here.