1:32pm Thursday 13th November 2008
THE titles Shellie Byatt gives to her work provide the clue to where the ideas for her images come from.
“I always work with music, but it has to be singing and ideas come to me through the words. Just a little verse I hear in a song creates an image in my head.
“Words are either the title or some version of it.”
Shellie admits that there are other words she hears that can provide the spark: “Sometimes it’ll be something I’ve overheard in the street,” she explains. “People say the most extraordinary things.
“I have been fascinated since childhood by words and images, and how we use them to tell stories which might help us to make sense of the world and, in particular, human relationships.
“I like ambiguity and riddles, and try to include these in my images. I am particularly intrigued and delighted when people see part of their own story in my work, especially when it is something I have not knowingly put in.”
The other way in which inspiration strikes is visually: “A juxtaposition of things, perhaps or people in odd positions.
“As soon as something has struck me, the word or image, the picture is almost complete,” says Shellie. “While working on it I let other things, accidents, happen. I might be doing two figures and then another one will come in.
“I don’t know how it happens. I’m just grateful that it does happen that way.
“I think I’m really lucky that a picture comes as a fully formed thing.”
So many words and phrases catch Shellie’s attention that she has a a big box of “thousands of pieces of paper, little diagrams and words” she’d like to get to one day.
The resulting work has become increasingly popular and highly collectable, prompting Shellie to collate a selection of her work in a book, ensuring that everyone can enjoy her distinctive style.
Shellie was born and brought up in London, and took her degree at Goldsmiths College, later obtaining a postgraduate teaching qualification.
After leaving London, she lived and worked in Norfolk for 10 years before moving to Hereford in 2001.
Among her recent exhibitions was the national touring exhibition, Wagging Tongues, for which she joined local artist Adrienne Craddock and Marjan Wouda, an exhibition presenting world proverbs through sculpture, prints and collage.
It was an exhibition that was listed in The Times as one of Rachel Campbell-Johnston’s “top five gallery exhibitions” and judged a “must-see” by Artists and Illustrators Magazine. She has shown and sold her work in various galleries in London, East Anglia, Wales and the Midlands.
Shellie’s work can next be seen in the exhibition accompanying The Hayward Gallery’s Touring Exhibition, Matisse: Drawing with Scissors, which opens at Hereford Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday, November 29.
To order a copy of Shellie’s book, Shellie Byatt, email mail@byatts.org.uk
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