I believe creating art is a personal, spiritual, emotional, mental and physical journey. Each new project I undertake begins a new journey. It is my search for meaning and my place in the world. These journeys are inspired by diverse sources, with diverse results. They take their forms as oil, acrylic, watercolor and mixed media paintings, drawings, multimedia collages, textile art and poetry. They are sometimes referential and sometimes abstract.

To an artist inspiration is everything. I draw mine from many things in the world around me. I also get inspiration by looking at past artists who expressed spiritual concerns or representations of the occult and flights of fantasy and surrealism such as Botticelli, Caravaggio, Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst, Goya, Remedios Varo, Frida Kahlo, George O'Keefe, Emily Carr and H.R. Giger. Words also influence my imagery. Poets such as Andre Breton, Antonin Artaud, Leonard Cohen, Lauren Hill, Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Henry Rollins, Lou Reed and Patti Smith create inspirational images in my mind. Other sources of inspiration include surreal films, music, nature, goddess mythology and folklore.

Painting or creating in any way can be analogous to other forms of physical/spiritual processes like meditation, ritual, yoga or martial arts. The act of creating puts one in touch with things that exist only in the unseen world whether this be the unconscious mind or the spiritual. On this journey are found emotions and sensibilities that cannot be touched or described by narrative language. This experience is sometime gratifying and joyful, but also sometimes painful, the results become the artwork. This artwork doesn't convey a specific meaning but is fluid, reflective and emotive like poetry. The story that results then lies in the audience hands as I have already lived it.

Sian Woodward