Painting

Many of Ingrid's paintings begin life in her sketchbooks, an indispensable aid to seeing and interpreting her travels. From Russia to Morocco, her experiences are reflected in this fascinating collection. She is also a talented photographer, but understands the difference between thinking through drawing and recording what she sees through a lens. Emphasis is always placed more strongly on the former.

Ingrid uses a multi-media approach - watercolour, oil pastel, emulsion, PVA, pen, pencil, ink, charcoal and coffee, to name a few - and creates the thickness of surface required to paint onto and work into by layering different papers and torn card. When a piece of work feels as though it is finished, the edges are often deliberately torn to produce an irregular effect. The painting will then be framed.

Much of Ingrid's work evokes a memory of place: "Russian Arches" from the Novodevinchy Convent in Moscow, "Taroudannt" from the southern Moroccan mountain town of that name. Her studies of people capture moments in time and the intensity of her life drawings seems to search for the rhythm and movement of life itself.

Colour is the main source of Ingrid's inspiration. Her bookshelves reflect her mentors: Delacroix, Degas and Matisse, along with the Russians Ilya Repin, Mikhail Vrubel, Valentin Serov and Surikov, artists still largely unknown in the Western European tradition.