Later in her career, alongside the collages and the convulsive landscapes, Colquhoun returned to painting nature. The flower forms of the natural world were as significant to her as the imaginative forms of her inner world. These late works are painted in a variety of media including pastel, acrylic and watercolour as well as in oil. Some of the oil paintings have passages of decalcomania. Even in these works, though the final image is naturalistic, it often contains an automatic impulse.
The majority are simple, straightforward compositions. They focus upon flowers in a vase (Roses in a Red Vase, 1980; Summer Flowers II, 1980) or one or two pieces of fruit (Grapefruit and Lemons, 1963). A work such as Still Life (1962) in which fruit, vegetables and tea pot are placed in an arrangement stands out as an exception to the general rule of simplicity. With their bright vivid colours and compositional simplicity, these works resemble nothing more than the output of an amateur Sunday painter finding inspiration from objects in the garden and kitchen. One imagines that they were painted purely for her own enjoyment.
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