Workshop Wisdom - Amy Dury

We caught up with painter Amy Dury to chat about her artistic journey, workshop, personal style, and general life.

Working from old photographs, home movies, and library archives, Amy Dury finds her inspiration in the everyday. Through the act of painting, moving figures, changing colours, Amy looks for the emotional truth beneath the surface rather than a faithful likeness of what was there.

I describe my work as contemporary narrative figurative painting. What I’m trying to do is tell stories using figures, faces, and gestures, working from images found in old photographs, home movies, and library archives. I actually started this whole journey by painting old photos from my family album. I ran out of people to paint around me, and those early family paintings revealed a whole new way of working to me. They are the only ones I’ve ever kept because they were so exciting to make. 

I don’t want to make direct copies of a photograph; that’s not what’s interesting to see in painting. I use Photoshop to change colors or move figures closer together, but I don’t consider the final pieces to be faithful portraits. I'm looking for suggestion, mystery, and the emotional relationships between the figures. 

My workshop is a real sacred space for me. It’s quite new—I only moved in about six months ago, but it’s a big space full of light from a roof light and two large windows. I've got a massive, long white wall to hang work, a plan chest, and a trolley full of paints. Walking into it every day gives me this amazing feeling of, "Wow, this is mine. I can do anything I want here." Unlike previous shared spaces, I don’t have to pander to anyone else's thoughts or ideas. It really is a room of one's own, like Virginia Woolf said. Having this environment has entirely changed the scale I can work at; I finally have the room to paint the massive canvases and diptychs that I love. 

On a good day, I’ll get to the studio around 8:00 or 9:00 AM, sometimes doing a yoga class first. I always start the morning with a coffee and some journalling. I usually want to launch into painting straight away, but I force myself to hold off for half an hour to settle in, organise my thoughts, and make a list of what I want to complete. I’ll work straight through until about 4:00 PM. Here in Brighton, the sea is only about half a mile away, so at the end of the day, I love to take a 45-minute walk along the water to just let go of all the physical tension of standing and sitting still all day. 

I listen to things constantly while I work. If it’s music, it's usually relaxing folk music, a great instrumentalist I found called Phil Cook, or my all-time favorite, Kate Bush. 

But really, I am a massive podcast fan. I used to be a true crime addict but weaned myself off it because it wasn't good for me. Now it's comedy all the time, and my number one favorite is the Ellis James and John Robbins podcast on BBC Sounds. I also absolutely love What Did You Do Yesterday? and Strangers on a Bench. They are both about the beautiful mundanity and minutiae of individual lives. I’m incredibly nosy, and I love finding out how other people think and live. Hearing someone describe exactly what they did the day before makes you feel a bit less alone. 

I didn't actually start painting until about eight years ago, even though my background is in printmaking, drawing, and textiles. Portraiture was my first love, but for some reason, I just never did it back then. Historically, I love the big, full-length portraits by Whistler and Sargent, but my ultimate influence is Degas. I’m fascinated by his mixture of looseness and preciseness, his compositions, and the way he uses color. 

Right now, there are several contemporary artists I feel deeply aligned with, especially from New York. Artists like Jennifer Packer, Doron Langberg, Anthony Cudahy, and the British painter Kaye Donachie. We are all trying to achieve something specific through figurative painting and highly expressive, altered color rather than realistic skin tones. 

The themes in my work usually only reveal themselves to me after looking at the pieces once they are finished, rather than me planning them beforehand. I’m very interested in power relationships, gender roles, and the ways people interact within families and societies. 

I've painted a lot of boy scouts, girl guides, and people in swimming costumes. I think those youth groups are like funny little mini-institutions and sub-societies. To a lot of people, these paintings just look like pieces of nostalgia, and that's wonderful. But for me, there’s always a deeper story about how that person got to be that way, or what happens when those specific people get together. Looking at the recent past allows us to see the generational stories of our parents and grandparents that ultimately shaped who we are. 

My favorite tool is definitely my easel. It’s a beautifully big, solid piece of kit on wheels with a crank handle so it can slide up and down. Buying it was a massive milestone because it truly felt like a commitment to my artistic career. I had just sold a painting, and I found this incredibly expensive easel heavily discounted because of some minor water damage. I decided to commit the entire price of that sold painting to buy the best piece of kit that would last me forever. Apart from that, my tools are entirely basic; I'm not fancy and my brushes go on forever. 

I have a quote pinned to my studio wall by E.M. Forster that is really inspiring me right now: "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" 

That quote completely justifies my need for a fast turnover of work. I don't sketch things out much; as soon as I have an idea, I just paint it. I used to worry about that, but now I know it's just my process. Only about 75% of what I paint is successful, and destroying the other 25% can be very depressing, but the best way for me to work is to put everything out there and analyze what it's about later. 

My primary ritual to balance this is my 12-minute morning journal entry. I try to avoid it every day, but keeping it to a strict, short timer makes it manageable. It introduces just a little bit of structured intention and analytical thinking before I launch straight into a flow state. 

I am actually quite wary of the whole "advice" thing, so I’ve chosen to pass on this question. I don’t ever want to pretend that I have the definitive answers or any superior insight. We are all just muddling along together. 

I’ve always believed there is a strong connection between being an artist and being visually aware of everything around you, whether it's architecture, interior design, or clothes. They all connect to your visual sensibilities. I’m hyper-aware of color, and I love buying hard-wearing, well-loved pieces that reflect the intersection of work and life. I actually find it a bit strange when artists have no concern for their clothes or environment, because to me, everything is intertwined. 

I don't intentionally dress in the colours I'm painting at the time, but if I have a gallery opening or a photoshoot, I will absolutely plan my outfit to consciously coordinate with the paintings.