Ursula’s paintings are skirmishes between nature and artifice, composed of sand and earth in battle with industrial pigment and chemical reagents. Poured and spread onto canvas, the artist has only limited control of the outcome, as the stronger forces of gravity, chemistry and chaos soon take over to dictate the final frozen moment in time, where conflicting substances and styles are shown fighting for the eye’s attention. For millennia, mankind has been compelled to draw - to record the physical and metaphysical world, using materials close at hand, such as pigments from local terrain. Increasingly, different cultures were defined by the colours and textures of their art. Styles and genres were born.
Combining the natural and the artificial is often ugly. Ursula’s art shows us only the beautiful moments, for example the deep colours of Brazilian soil mixed with the rust from scrap metal found in a Favela. On her travels she gathers new local materials for her paintings, particularly sand and earth, and studies the colour systems of local art in relation to both local culture and terrain, and the Modern World.
Ursula has also collaborated with industrial pigment manufacturers and precision engineers, sourcing the finest materials that are the essence of the synthetic, and discovering some chance reactions along the way - unexpected colours and textures appearing where substances meet - reflecting our modern life in a world of infinite variables, but with a vast source of materials, cultures, styles and information.