My work is inspired by an emotional response to the natural world, in particular to the quality of light, which is a vital part of the mood of the paintings. The work is painted intuitively from memory, so that rather than relating to a specific place, it evokes memories and personal interpretations in the viewer. Ambiguity is a key aspect of the semi-abstract nature of the paintings, enabling the viewer to project their own emotional response onto the work. There is a sense of intimacy and intensity, and the idea of a glimpse into a remembered reality. My paintings relate to the English landscape tradition – Constable's oil sketches are an important influence.

I like the sensuality and depth of colour of oil paint, used in direct and gestural brushstrokes, which assert the materiality of the oil paint and of the painting's surface. I often work in oil on panel, which allows me to scratch into the wet surface. The meaning of the work emerges from the language of paint, which is allowed to be itself before it is a description of something. I am fascinated by the capacity of paint to express things which cannot be put into words: a mysterious process takes place whereby the marks of the brush work on a subtle level, setting up an emotional and poetic resonance.

I collect information about the particular places in the landscape which have meaning for me by drawing in pencil, watercolour or oilstick. I don't take photos – I don't find they give me the right kind of information. My drawings are informed as much by the experience of being there, by weather, sounds, smells and the process of walking through the landscape as by what I can see. Back in my studio, I use the drawings to help focus my memory, but don't work directly from them – I find it works better to put the source material aside and to paint intuitively, so that the painting becomes an entity in its own right which starts to make its own demands – in a sense, it begins to answer back.

© Louise Balaam 2006