ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the way in which particular themes may recur in an individual artist’s work and the possible reasons for this. It argues that, over the course of their working lives, artists return to particular themes that have a personal relevance for them. This return may be consciously chosen, or it may surprise the artist as she recognises in retrospect that there are underlying links between seemingly very disparate artworks. The chapter proposes that these recurring themes relate to inchoate elements in the artist’s inner experience that can be thought of as exerting an internal pressure on the artist to create external forms for them. The chapter refers to the work of psychoanalysts Christopher Bollas, Howard Levine, Sigmund Freud and Donald Winnicott. It includes a consideration of Patricia Townsend’s own artworks and quotations from interviews with John Aiken, Dryden Goodwin, Sharon Kivland, Edward Allington, Hayley Newman, Nina Rodin and Laura Malacart.
