Why colour is everything to me as a painter (especially when the world feels grey)

The grey days we don’t talk about

There’s something about grey days that lingers. I don’t just mean the weather, though here in Pembrokeshire, we certainly get our share of that. I’m talking about that feeling of emotional greyness. The news is heavy. Social media can be exhausting. The “same old” routines. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of sameness. And in all that static, colour becomes a kind of rebellion. And that, more than anything else, is why colour is absolutely everything to me.

Why colour matters so much in my work

As a contemporary painter, I don’t always work with traditional subject matter. Some people ask me why I don’t paint “real things.” You know, recognisable stuff. And honestly, I get it. But to me, colour is real. It’s raw and honest and sometimes even more truthful than a photo or figure could ever be. Instead, I focus on abstraction. Shape, movement, texture, gesture and at the core of it all: colour. When I layer paint and let the colours push and pull against each other, I feel like I’m having a conversation, with myself, with the viewer, with the chaos of the world.

Colour is how I think. It’s how I feel. It’s how I make sense of things that can’t be said out loud.

For me, colour is more than a visual choice, it’s emotional, almost intuitive. It speaks in a language that goes deeper than words. When I paint, I’m not decorating a canvas, I’m having a conversation with it. And colour is the loudest voice in the room. And when people stand in front of my work and say, “This makes me feel something,” I know the colour is doing its job.

A way to push back against the grey

On those days when the world feels particularly heavy or monotonous, I turn to my colour palette. Not because I’m always feeling “inspired” (spoiler: I’m not), but because painting is my way of resisting that greyness.

Sometimes that resistance looks like chaotic bursts of sexy pink and glorious green, layered until they vibrate with energy. Other times, it’s dreamy lilac or soft blues that feel quieter but no less honest.

Either way, I’m not chasing perfection. I’m chasing something real - something alive.

The power of colour to move us

Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to have people interact with my work in deeply personal ways. Some have told me a piece made them feel joy again, others say it reminded them of a moment, a place, a memory they didn’t even realise they’d forgotten.

And most of the time, it’s the colour that did that.

There’s something incredibly powerful about how colour bypasses logic and goes straight to the heart. It makes us feel without needing to explain.

Painting as a reminder

More than anything, painting in colour is my way of reminding myself, and hopefully others, that the world isn’t just one shade.

Even when things feel grey and flat, there’s still beauty hiding in the margins. Still emotion. Still light.

And if we can’t see it right away, we can make it. We can paint it, wear it, hang it on our walls, grow it in our gardens. Because colour isn’t just an aesthetic choice, it’s a statement. It says, I’m here. I feel. I’m alive.

Final thoughts

So yes, colour is everything to me.

It’s how I cope, how I create, how I connect. It’s the language I trust most, especially when words fall short. And in a world that sometimes feels overwhelmingly grey, I think we all need a little more of it. In a grey world, it’s my way of saying, Look closer. There’s still beauty here. That little burst of brightness might just be exactly what you need.