Reflections on Shape and Colour Lead to Journeys of Abstraction in the Encounter Series
- Charlotte Wensley
- Aug 1, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
This collection of abstract paintings brought together my liminal approach to art making with more formal considerations of colour and shape.
After completing my Portal Series in early 2023 I spent several weeks re-investigating the work I'd made, through sketch and collage, creating a 'Wall of Curiosities', filled with mini paintings, drawings, collages and visual experiments; all signposts towards abstraction.
I gave myself time to sit with the work, respond to what I could see and allow threads of resonance to surface. This reflection exercise enabled me to unearth clues as to where to go next in the studio.
Shape emerged as the primary consideration, but I also wanted to approach my use of colour with greater awareness and sensitivity, resulting in time spent immersed in researching colour and making small colour studies and sketches. This exploratory work formed the basis of the paintings in this series.
My mind turns often to memories as I'm working, reflecting on places I've been and things I've seen and experiences I've had and these stories weave their way into the work as I contemplate the guiding narrative of each piece.
This is a body of work that reflects on my encounters with shape, colour, process and personal experiences.
There are 18 paintings in this series (2023).
| Candyland
This piece was initially a process experiment exploring the possibilities of dark beginnings overlayed with collage pieces in bold, saturated colours. Different textures came together in a lively dance of collage and paint, supported by a background of mysterious darkness alive with the presence of shadows. The composition creates a sense of joyful chaos, brimming with playful energy, with the painting evolving into a story about approaching challenges with an open mind and a commitment to exploring different solutions.
Mixed Media on Board
30cm x 30cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Coming Ashore
This painting became about the feeling of brevity that is described so perfectly by the edge of a wave rolling up the beach; that liminal moment where water yields to land before it begins to recede. The earth inspired colours and the bold swathe of blue evoke the movement of an incoming tide; bringing with it a story about moments of delicate physical and emotional balance, that sometimes exist so fleetingly, that they can go unwitnessed.
Mixed Media on Board
50cm x 60cm
Framed in Australian Oak
| Echo
This piece hums with a nostalgic rhythm, rendered in a palette of vibrant but soft retro colours that feel both familiar and timeless. Shapes and layers repeat like fading memories, creating a gentle resonance across the painting surface. It’s a contemplative piece, where past and present seem to meet in quiet harmony and where space is held for memories.
Mixed Media on Board
30cm x 30cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Findings
This piece is a visual journey of discovery, where layered marks, textures, and shapes reveal traces of exploration. Each detail hints at something found, fragments of thought, memory, or place coming together in a quiet visual conversation. It’s a painting that celebrates creative curiosity and the beauty of the precious treasures that are uncovered in the painting process. It speaks strongly to my approach to life. Be curious and alive to finding treasure and experiencing wonder in all things.
Mixed Media on Board
50cm x 60cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Lush
This piece evolved into a story about emotional richness and abundance. Its layers of colour and texture evoke the vitality of a generous and flourishing landscape. Sweeping forms and saturated colour create a sense of everything in its place and as nature intended; it feels alive, a visual celebration of creative spirit. It invites you to contemplate the positive energetic vibration experienced by simply being in nature and absorbing the landscape.
Mixed Media on Board
60cm x 50cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Moon Walk
Moon Walk floats between the earthly and the celestial, describing the act of stepping into the unknown and journeying quietly on an unfamiliar path. The layered shapes and colours suggest both a landscape and a dreamscape, where the light of the night sky has an otherworldly glow. This intimate painting holds a feeling of weightlessness and freedom from constraints both tangible and ephemeral. It’s an invitation to drift into a reflective space and a pleasing dream.
30cm x 30cm
Mixed Media on Board
Framed in Australian Oak
| Pilgrimage
'Pilgrimage' speaks to the slow passage through shifting personal landscapes of memory and meaning that happen as I’m painting. Layered forms within the composition suggest pathways and thresholds, hinting at both distances travelled and the quiet transformations that happen along the way. For me, this painting describes the way emotional evolution is in constant rhythmic dialogue with painterly discoveries. Journeying through emotional landscapes with paint and paper allows essential revelations about life experiences to reveal themselves, which better informs my perspective on the world moving forward.
80cm x 110cm
Mixed Media on Board
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| River Crossing
River Crossing is about the moments of transition I feel where the edge of one experience gives way to another and where a sense of forward momentum exists.
The shapes in the composition suggest a flowing current with sandbanks and stepping stones, creating possible navigable pathways through the landscape. This piece evokes a dynamic threshold space that is full of possibility and where ‘crossing’ becomes both physically and emotionally symbolic.
80cm x 60cm
Mixed Media on Board
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Roam
Roam embodies a sense of freedom and open wandering, where form and colour drift in a complex conversation without boundaries. The composition feels untethered, like a journey without a fixed destination, the work itself guided instead by curiosity and instinct, echoing personal sentiments about life experience. It carries the spirit of exploration, inviting you to lose yourself in its unfolding terrain.
80cm x 110cm
Mixed Media on Board
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Scattered
Scattered conveys the beauty of fragments—moments, memories, or impressions—dispersed yet still connected by an unseen rhythm. Shapes and colours drift across the surface like leaves blowing in the wind, forming an organic pattern of movement. It suggests both disarray and harmony, invites a meditation on how things sometimes fall apart and come together again.
Mixed Media on Board
60cm x 50cm
Framed in Australian Oak
| Secret Cove
Secret Cove evokes the quiet intimacy of a hidden place, sheltered and protected from the wider world. It was inspired by a childhood visit to the south coast of England, which felt like a faraway place, filled with secret treasure. I have vivid memories of scrambling down steep rocky pathways that led down to beautiful coves and beaches that felt untouched and otherworldly. Layers of colour suggest shifting light on water and stone, and refuges shaped by tide and time. This piece is about wonder and discovery.
Mixed Media on Board
50cm x 60cm
Framed in Australian Oak
| The Alleyway
The Alleyway captures the intrigue of a narrowed passage, where shadow and light play across shifting planes. As this piece evolved it came to remind me of the many alleyways of my home town of York in England; a medieval town with a rabbit warren of ‘snickleways’ for criss-crossing the city. It began as an encounter with colour but went on its own unique journey of teenage memories. For me it evokes a sense of transition, being drawn deeper into the depths of the city for a singular purpose - to roam freely and explore.
Mixed Media on Board
30cm x 30cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| The Big Edge
This painting came to describe a journey I made many years ago across the Nullarbor Plain and explores the threshold between stability and the unknown, where form and colour meet in bold tension. I have a vivid memory of standing on the clifftop on the Great Australian Bight and looking out to sea, with the curvature of the earth strikingly prominent on the horizon. The composition feels expansive yet precarious, as though poised on the brink of change. It carries an energy of risk and possibility, inviting the viewer to contemplate what lies just beyond.
Mixed Media on Board
50cm x 60cm
Framed in Australian Oak
| The Jetty
The Jetty is reminiscent of a space where land yields to water and solidity gives way to flow. A place where meeting and departure take place. Lines and textures suggest both strength in structure and a fragile decaying of what was one solid. This painting holds a contemplative stillness, evoking the edge of a journey and the threshold of no return.
Mixed Media on Board
30cm x 30cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| The Parade
This piece evolved through many layers and alterations to the composition, ultimately becoming a rhythmic piece echoing the energy of a festive procession. It conveys a sense of both collective joy and momentum, capturing the spirit of many souls coming together in a vibrant, unfolding dance across the landscape. A celebration of colour and form in motion, this painting evokes memories of attending village fetes and community gatherings as a child, where colourful energy was all around.
Mixed Media on Board
80cm x 60cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Voyager
The recurring vessel shapes in this painting describe a journey outward across a vast imagined landscape of unchartered territory. I sense these shapes moving with a contemplative energy, encouraging the inward exploration of residual memories.
This piece is about a journey of the mind and speaks to the idea of charting a new course through the history of one’s own experience with a new perspective.
Mixed Media on Board
80cm x 60cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
| Wayward
This piece drifts beyond the boundaries of certainty, embracing the beauty of unpredictability. Its shifting shapes and layered colours echo the feeling of being led by instinct rather than direction, of wandering without a map. Wayward evokes freedom and restlessness, and invites you on a journey that diverges from the path towards a destination unknown.
Mixed Media on Board
80cm x 60cm
Framed in Australian Oak
Original - SOLD
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