Deborah Poynton

'This idea came to me as I was walking in the forest near my house in Germany. There are lots of little streams which catch the light and reflect the sky in the darkness of damp, rotting leaves, and it’s very quiet. Sometimes, in the distance, I catch sight of a deer and stand very still, and after a few seconds it will suddenly take fright and crash away. I’ve walked over that little bridge thousands of times, it’s in the woods just below my house. An old man from the village used to maintain it, but he has died and it’s now derelict, so you have to jump across. My walks are circular. I feel the landscape there as enclosing and self-sufficient, like the setting for a fable. I liked the fairy-tale feeling of a never-ending stream. It was quite hard to force the landscape into the shape I wanted and apply light that would hold it together, just. There is a frozen, restful feeling to it. At the same time, it occupies that exact line between gravitas and kitsch, I think many of my paintings do. There is a comforting lack of commitment in that. I sometimes think we take art so seriously that we have forgotten how to enjoy it.'