Ahead of their joint exhibition at Watts Contemporary Gallery, opening on 7 September, artist Fiona Millais and sculptor Lucy Lutyens spoke to exhibition curator Gwen Hughes about their work and what inspires them.

Can you give us a brief introduction to your work, for those who aren’t familiar with it?

FM: I’m inspired by landscape. My paintings are sometimes very closely tied to a specific place, or other times they are more abstract and they can be a sort of translation of a journey or a whole day. The landscapes are generally around where I live in the Surrey hills, but I also love painting seascapes of Cornwall and Scotland. And the odd still life thrown in when the weather is too horrible!

LL: My work is very specifically inspired by the farm where I live and birdlife, and particularly by my guinea fowl which are the most extraordinary shape. The farm has ancient bronze age burial grounds and, when I was working in clay, I was fascinated by the idea that it might include the DNA of those people from so long ago.

It strikes me that the works of both of you have a kind of timeless quality. Do you have an idea of the kind of mood you are aiming to create?

LL: I’m definitely aiming for serenity. Going to the studio for me is a very peaceful space, and when I’m working, it’s almost like my hands take over. I don’t go in with an exact plan of how a piece is going to be, it just seems to evolve of its own accord. Hopefully I’m creating a shape which is calming for other people.

FF: I think I work in quite a similar way to Lucy in that I don’t have a specific plan for a painting when I start it and I aim for a place of serenity as well.

Do you sometimes get to a point when you’re making your work and you think, this is just not working…?

FM: Yes often. Sometimes I will put it to one side for a while, or sometimes I will get my big pot of white paint out and attack it. But there’s usually something about a painting that I like and it can be quite a process of layering and taking time till something comes through that I’m content with.

LL: That’s really interesting – all round my studio there are half-finished pieces and it can be years later I pick it up and think “I know exactly where this is going”. Sometimes you just have to wait, because by forcing something it just doesn’t work.

FM: I will work on several paintings at once, and maybe one I’m working on will solve the problem of the previous one and then they form a group that are all talking to each other. I find that quite intriguing so one painting leads on to the next.

LL: Sometimes I feel I should go completely out of my comfort zone and do something else, but I’ve been doing this for so long now, that I’ve got to know what I’m doing a bit more and I have my own style.

Can you talk us through the process of making your work?

LL: I carve the initial idea in Celotex (it’s what you use to insulate walls), which is much more robust than polystyrene. Then I build up a model from fibreglass and resin, which is pretty toxic, but it’s incredibly strong. It’s much easier than working in plaster. Then I get a mould made and they’re cast in bronze or resin.

FM: I paint mostly on panels that are covered with a gesso primer, and then I use acrylic paints, which I use quite thinly. I used to use oils more, but now I much prefer acrylics as they suit the way I work. You can put on layers and scratch back through and make really interesting effects. The gesso makes a beautiful surface to paint on and it’s great with board because you can sand it down. It’s a bit like a medieval palimpsest where you can see traces of what was there before and for me it reflects the land and how it’s been affected by time. I listen to music while I paint and there’s quite a lot of rhythm that goes through my landscapes.

I have to ask, Millais and Lutyens are names that come with a lot of artistic history - has that been a help or a hindrance?

FM: When I was about 5 of 6 there was a big Millais exhibition at the Royal Academy and I was taken along. And apparently I was completely transfixed by Ophelia and had to be dragged away. So he was in my consciousness from an early age. It’s a tricky question. Now, I’m much more at ease with it, and if it means that somebody will look twice at my paintings then it’s got to be a help.

LL: At the beginning I hated the thought that it was a sort of step up, but it’s helped by giving me a kind of confidence. I have a photo of Edwin Lutyens in my studio (I think he would hate my work, actually!) and I do have a sense of him watching me and challenging me to do the best work I can.