Of her work Maggy says "I am often asked “Where does that painting depict?” and I can only reply that they are here, in Bannau Brycheiniog, the Wye Valley or any of the many places I visit. My paintings are inspired by existing landscapes but do not seek to recreate them in a purely representational way. The paintings have a life of their own, emerging from my emotional responses to the landscapes and the colours they evoke, allowing them to sing and dance together.
“Why such bright colours?” I love colour and the bright Mediterranean light of Catalonia, where we had a house, moved my palette in a stronger direction, as it had done for Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck over a century earlier. On returning to Wales I continued to have the same emotional feelings towards the local landscapes. I also delighted in the various patterns and marks that nature, history and man has made upon the landscapes and these too became further abstracted. There’s often a small white cottage in my paintings that represents not just the human presence but the ‘home’ that I found in Wales, where my children were born and where I have spent most of my life.
In essence, there is a landscape there but it is abstracted so that its decorative qualities can be explored and the tonal qualities transposed in dramatic colours.'
Maggy is a former children’s book illustrator and lecturer in illustration who lives near Hay-on-Wye