Francesca Mollett’s work derives from observations of her immediate environment. Drawings in charcoal, graphite and watercolour inform the composition of her paintings. Anchored in the physical negotiation of their making, her paintings are made with various techniques, including impasto accumulations of paint with a palette knife, thinned paint smeared and rubbed across the canvas, and large sweeping strokes of colour, a process which continues the sensation of an encounter.Mollett’s painterly technique engages a push and pull between luminosity, density, depth and surface. In particular, Mollett probes the phenomenology of iridescence, both in her experience of the world, and in the process of painting. Focusing on specific elements of an environment or place, such as doorways, rock formations, pools of water, and reflective and matte surfaces on buildings, she extracts from nature and place to produce an evocation out of time and place, yet very much materially present. Key to her process is a careful balancing of pure mark making – surface tension is created by the layering of painting marks, as they blend and contrast. Scale is abstracted, discernable forms are hinted at but never made evident, they are complicated or abstracted, constantly drawing the eye across the painted surface, allowing her painting to retain an intangible quality.

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