Abstraction is a non-objective art form that has been practised by artists for well over a century. It serves as an expressive genre and aspires to transcend direct copying from the visual world. It can allude to emotion, or sensual experience, but is largely open to personal interpretation. For Vonne, abstraction is a celebration of the possibilities of oil paint, particularly in respect to colour and texture. An ongoing experiment in what can be left out, and should be added in, and the relationship between a ground, (usually canvas or wood), and the layers of emulsion added on top. Working towards an illusive end point, when each brush stroke, scrape, tone, and tint is completely necessary and the whole takes on its independent life.

Sometimes Vonne goes past this perfect point, and is back in the mélange, trying once again to wrangle the infinite possibilities into a composition that settles and becomes timeless.

Perhaps ironically, the forms of flowers in a vase sometimes become the topic, or at least the starting point, but can also end up appearing at the end of a painterly emprise. Several works sit tantalisingly between figurative and abstract, suggesting a still life, but not quite confirming one.

A painting by Vonne will not offer up all it’s secrets straight away.