Drop in to Barnstaple Library during opening hours & see a selection of work by Tushka Illustrates.

Artist Statement

For years Tushka (Chrissy Mouncey) has photographed moments in the outdoors which make her feel something. Through reading books by Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin and other writers focused on the outdoors and then catching a programme on radio 4 about Awe she has realised she has always been photographing little moments of awe; moments that make her feel uplifted and glad to be alive as the beginnings of an intention to hold onto these feelings and be able to revisit them and share the sense of positivity it gives her.

Helen De Cruz who is an author of a book researching awe and wonderment ‘we live in a steady drumbeat of bad news… Awe helps you value things for what they are.’

Experiencing awe, even little moments of awe has a physical effect on us, it stimulates the release of oxytocin and activates the vagus nerve. Emotionally or mentally it gives us a sense of feeling smaller but more connected, a focus outwards rather than on our internal selves and can feel happier and less stressed even weeks after experiencing awe. Tushka’s work is an exploration of conveying this sense of little moments of awe, to hold onto it and keep it but also to share it and pass it on.

Her work often uses her photography as references to create images of experiences of awe, people surfing, dipping, being emerged in the outdoors, with a focus on light and water and the experience itself. More recently she has begun to create regular sketches, documenting the moments and feelings they stimulate, working from the photographs that give her the greatest emotional reaction when she revisits them and focusing on drawing out the elements that make her feel something, enhancing these elements.

The sketches are then sifted through and the ones that catch her attention the most when revisited become the basis to create larger screen prints that are layers of colour, light and movement. Through mono-printing and gradient printing sketchy, inky and painterly layers she builds up the artworks drawing out the colour, light, wind, shadow, clouds, seas and so on so, as to inspire a sense of awe, creating hopefully artworks that create a positive feeling, that relax and uplift.

Although her work is based largely on seascapes and landscapes, she is less concerned with the representation of location as with using the recognisable and familiar as an easy access point to the feelings the prints create. It’s the subconscious reactions to them that she is interested in, that they inspire others to look for and consciously notice this feeling of wonderment in their every days too.

A Little Yay Everyday - display of artwork by Tushka Illustrates