Laura Barnard

I like it when ancient standing stones look as if they're in conversation with one another. I like it when I find a radar station on top of a snowy hill. I like the sense of space when looking down from a ridge at the pattern of fields below.

To begin with, I draw outdoors in front of the landscape sitting in wet grass in waterproofs or in the summer dust, whether that's at home in Wiltshire, or on field trips to places like Dungeness or North Uist. This is for me to look closely enough at what's there to download the important parts to memory. I use notes for colour — a Galaxy chocolate-coloured field or taramasalata-coloured shingle. Back at the studio these working drawings are translated into larger drawings and colour paint sketches.

These beginnings then become semi-abstract paintings that are as much about the feeling of a location as they are a representation, and invite the viewer to look through the surface of the painting to the sense of the place itself.