‘I have never lost the wonder and curiosity behind making and creating artworks’
If I’m not in the art studio painting, I will be found walking and sketching in nature with my small art dog companion and muse, Otto.
Many of my paintings are inspired by locations usually from around Derbyshire and Herefordshire.
My sketchbooks are a visual diary; colours, compositions, shapes and atmosphere. I also makes notes on the location. I am always fascinated by how the changing light affects the mood and atmosphere of a place.
When I’m back in my art studio, I start to create paintings on canvas from my sketchbooks and notes. The visual imagery in the sketchbooks brings back memories and emotions of time and place.
I have always had an affinity and connection with the natural environment; that is where I get my creativity and inspiration. I was fortunate to spend my childhood on a small farm near the magnificence of the Black Mountains and the inspiring and poetic Golden Valley in Herefordshire.
The dramatic yet immersive landscape in which I grew up still inspires my work to this day. This is where I developed a deep understanding of and respect for the natural environment and where I began my authentic creative journey.
I aim to create paintings that express an energy that is distinctly contemporary. I explore the theme of scapes from sea and land through to urban and dreamscapes. Forms and shapes are abstracted and they have an emotive spontaneity, offering an ongoing dialogue that slowly unfolds. Poetic narratives play out, embracing all the senses. Marks are layered until the surface takes on its own relief pattern, and the image and atmosphere emerge.
Each painting has nature and landscape as its starting point.
As the painting emerges, it ebbs and flows, often moving away from representation, becoming more intuitive and expressive. The canvas is layered with washes of colour and impasto mark making. Layered, poetic images of nature come to the fore, which in turn influence the direction the painting takes. Memories, experiences and observations become edited and imprinted within the composition.
Organic yet structural.
