“Oil paint is my preferred and primary medium. Working in oil is delightful and sensuous. The medium can be buttery in its consistency, the flow easily altered, and layers built. Many of my artworks are lyrical and abstract in nature with a focus on colour enlivened by gesture and mark-making.”
Di Gomery lives and creates her art in York and has displayed her paintings at Pyramid Gallery, York, York Hospital, Scarborough Hospital, Partisan Cafe (Micklegate, York), Dean Clough Gallery (Halifax), and Fronteer Gallery (Sheffield).
Her paintings are primarily oil on canvas or board, often large in scale, that are lyrical, imaginative, responses to landscape and/or the human form. Her approach is one of playful energy with an underlying structure and solidity and her artistic influences include the work of British and US women abstract expressionists.
Di’s paintings were recently on display: York Hospital Main Corridor (22 Aug-Oct 2024) / Scarborough Hospital (11 June-01 Oct 2024) 'Upstairs Gallery' 1st Floor, Woodlands Drive, Scarborough YO12 6QL / ‘Gomery and Braganza’ (27 Jan-10 Mar 2024) Gomery’s paintings and Braganza’s ceramics at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York.
Artist’s Bio
Born and raised in Yorkshire, Di studied Art and Design at Manchester (BA, 1976) and Birmingham (MA, 1978) with a specialism in fine art textiles despite her love of painting.
After Post Graduate study Di worked in the design industry for Jakob Schlaepfer couture fabric design (Switzerland), and then with Courtaulds, Manchester. Di has taught at Loughborough College of Art, Bretton Hall College, University of Huddersfield, and Batley School of Art and Design.
Her aims are to push the boundaries of oil painting techniques to render her paintings with energy and the suggestion of being ‘drawn’. Di was delighted that her painting 'Cap Ferret' was PaintBritain's painting of the day (12 January 2025). She is a member of the South Bank Artists collective (York), a North Yorkshire Open Studios artist, and a member of York Creatives (York).
Di has undertaken academic research for a Canada Post Stamp series, received awards from the Scottish Arts Council, the Canadian Craft Council, and was winner of the Grampian Television Prize. She has received commissions in England and Canada and exhibited her work in group shows (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Ottawa and London), and two solo shows (Edinburgh, and Ottawa Canada). Her paintings have been exhibited across the north of England, most notably at the Pyramid Gallery, York (2024) and Dean Clough Gallery, Halifax (2022) and are housed in private collections in England and Canada.
“My studio’s proximity to home, the short walk to the rivers Ouse and Foss, Millennium Bridge, Rowntree Park, York’s art gallery and museums, and the Fulford Ings - make York one of the most rewarding and culturally rich places to live and create art.”
Artist’s STATEMENT
For me the act of painting is the extension and summation of ideas initially captured from nature or still life and subsequently explored further and abstracted in my sketchbook. From here the painting emerges as an entity in its own right, inspired by the sketch like a plant grown in fertile soil.
My paintings in part suggest ‘growth’ and in the main are celebrations of colour, vibrancy, and the energy of nature and life reimagined through gestural mark making in oil. I intentionally incorporate the element of ‘contrast’ in my paintings using strong colours placed against more muted colours, and drawn elements adjacent to solid painted areas. The distribution and proportions of the shapes across the canvas are central to the paintings in order to create a flow and balance - even when some shapes are much more dominant than others. I paint standing at the easel and use oil sticks combined with oil paint that together provide me with the freedom to draw expressively and expansively on the canvas. Importantly, the media I use in my paintings enable me to capture the energy of the sketchbook, enjoy the painting process, and communicate this uplifting joy and exuberance to the viewer.