'Alison Britton-Paterson's work is expressive and textural. It is tactile in both its heavily impasto surface and in the abstracted space it offers the viewer.  Britton-Paterson plays with the viewer's expectations of the landscape.  Using bold pallet-knife marks, arching shapes, and an effective placement of tone, the artist creates a window to reverie that we can all vanish into.  Her use and disruption of the horizon line along with the physical power of her brush-marks convey the drama of a physical or emotional landscape.  Her work is beautiful, yes, but not easy.  It is not calm or serene but more complex: dragging up powerful swathes of emotional movement in the viewer as the eye meanders through the paint.  Her palette is divinely moody, the earthy tones creating a perfect equilibrium between cold and warmth.  The detail within these paintings is quite extraordinary. 

Although Britton-Paterson's work vibrates with melodramatic paint-strokes, the minutiae of the mark making is not lost.  The scrawls are interspersed with deliberate and controlled marks which pull the viewer's eye expertly, ensuring depth of field.  This allows her paintings to retain a controlled and finished quality amongst the energy; the harbour wall cradling the sea.'

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Kate Reeve-Edwards

Arts Writer

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