I’ve never had to search for home

How a lifetime in Newport, Pembrokeshire continues to shape my paintings.

I found some old photograph this week that made me stop and smile. They were photographs of me as a little girl standing on Carn Ingli, windswept hair and a smile that could only belong to a child who felt completely at home. Looking through them brought back so many memories but it also made me realise something that I had never really put into words before. I've never had to search for my subject. It has always been here.

I was born in Pembrokeshire and grew up in Newport, with Carn Ingli rising above us and the coastline always close by. The hills, the sea, the changing skies and the wildness of this landscape were simply part of everyday life. As a child, I wasn't thinking about inspiration or about becoming a painter one day. I was just outside exploring, noticing things and usually wondering when I’d be allowed to tuck into my packed lunch!

Looking back now, I can see that those early experiences shaped the way I see the world and, ultimately, the way I paint. Even now, I find myself returning to the same places that have been part of my life for so long. I walk the paths around Carn Ingli, watch the tide moving across Traeth Mawr and notice how the light changes across the hills and coastline throughout the seasons. What I love most is that it never feels like the same landscape twice.

A familiar view can completely transform depending on the weather, the time of day or the season. The sea can be calm and still one day, wild and dramatic the next. The hills can feel soft and welcoming in one moment and powerful and mysterious the next. There is always something new to notice, and that is what keeps drawing me back.

People sometimes ask why I continue to paint Pembrokeshire, and the honest answer is that I don't feel as though I am painting the same place again and again.

I am painting a place that is constantly changing. I am painting memories, feelings and moments that cannot be recreated. I am painting the way the landscape feels rather than simply the way it looks.

When I step into my studio, I am not trying to reproduce a view that could be captured with a camera. What interests me is something much harder to hold onto - the feeling of standing in that place. The wind coming across the hills, the sound of the sea, the silence before rain arrives, the warmth of evening light or that deep sense of belonging that comes from knowing a landscape over a lifetime.

Every painting begins long before I pick up a brush. It begins with years of walking, observing and returning to the places that have quietly shaped me.

I think that is why my connection to this landscape is so important to my work. I am not painting somewhere I have simply visited. I am painting somewhere that has been part of my story from the beginning.

There are many beautiful places in the world, but every painter has a landscape that becomes part of who they are. For me, that place will always be Pembrokeshire.

Looking at those old photographs reminded me that, in many ways, not much has changed. I am still climbing the same mountain, walking the same beaches, watching the same skies and searching for the same feeling that first captured my imagination as a child. The feeling of coming home.