"Listen within yourself and look into the infinitude of Space and Time. There can be heard the songs of the Constellations, the voices of the Numbers, and the harmonies of the Spheres"
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
"Artistic creation's an organic process that defies intention – a journey into the unknown, a divine dance. A blending, merging, swirling, unfurling into form. As I go within, into the flow – a calm, intensely focused state – I allow a new dance to begin”
SONYA ROTHWELL
"I paint from another place – where I go, I couldn't tell you. I step away from myself, yet in that place I am more myself than anywhere else. To borrow from Poet Laureate Pablo Neruda; while I am painting I am far away, and when I come back I have already gone"
SONYA ROTHWELL
Sonya Rothwell creates from the heart seeing Art as a spiritual alchemy – the divine dance of bringing inspiration into being. Her paintings of empyrean consciousness expressing itself (or large scale iridescent abstracts of the cosmos) are created by 'cosmosis' – subtly absorbed minglings with universal forces. 'We are all made of stars, interwoven and infinite.' Like galaxies, each work is made up of interconnected canvases – individual parts of the whole, intended to scatter like stars across our sphere ☆
Sonya’s process is very physical, working on the floor ‘in the flow’ her hands move quickly around the painting, smearing, smudging, dripping and splattering, as melding pools of iridescent colour alchemically paint themselves. Created in just one session her ethereal oils retain a freshness, immediacy and magic – once the spell is broken the work is complete ☆
"Art, when created from the heart is never mediocre. One must be passionate – throw oneself wholeheartedly into creation. Dive in head first, naked. Float and frolick in its foam. Swirl in its glittering streams of sunlight and swim around its silken depths. Then behold what emerges"
SONYA ROTHWELL
Cosmosis is an ongoing body of work that may be viewed online or by appointment at our salon. In warmer months Sonya sometimes opens the doors of her studio allowing National Trust The Courts Garden goers in to watch her paint. Enjoying their excitement, she chats and jokes with them about art and life as she works. Intrigued, some people spend the day in the garden to watch her paintings emerge to completion ☆
Banner photograph by Sam Fielding