Eilean Rainich Painting

Painting has been my life from as far back as I can remember. For me, the process of painting is a personal dialogue which explores the relationships between us and the perceived world. In a sense it's the activity that lets me know that I'm living. My influences are quite varied - from Masaccio to Pontormo, Turner to Sutherland, Pollock to Hodgkin. It's not always easy to see how these influences work, but these are the artists that make me want to paint. In the past I've lived in many parts of Britain, drifting between the city and the countryside, rarely in either for long, and working from these extremities of nature and neo-nature. I've also travelled extensively in Europe, the United States, North Africa and a small part of Asia, sometimes staying for extended periods. Despite this somewhat nomadic existence I do have a natural home, though it's not really a place as such. It's a view. That across Morecambe Bay and north to the Lakeland hills, a view I've obsessed over since childhood, being brought up in a village only a stones throw from the shores. I expect my paintings are some kind of synthesis of all the above, I don't really know. I'm not even sure that it's necessary to know. Literature is for telling the story, art is for telling how the story feels.