Painting / Drawing
Artist statement.
My practice is a continuing exploration of shape and colour. Be that of a realistic nature or deeply abstract or symbolic. I tend to work thematically for a finite period of time before putting my creations to one side and trying to consider what a complete opposite set of artworks could be. Black and white to full colour. Complex to minimalist. Realistic to geometric shapes. Something new with each passing of the creative page. I know, however, that the work I’ve done previously will somehow inform the next raft of creations, but what I don’t know, is how. By creating new and inventive compositions I explore how form can hold itself in relation to other forms around it.
Everything stems from drawing. Be that keenly observed images rendered directly from life, or flourishes of mark-making that are fiery and spontaneous. I don’t necessarily consider that I paint per-se, I draw and sculpt with colour and create artworks that are of places I know if they’re of ‘things’, or of sensations I feel if they’re not of ‘things’. The lines rise and fall, the colours twist and turn, the melody of the series of works rises to celebratory crescendo, then segues into a calming flood of simple and restrained visual harmonies. Shades next to similar shades. Repeating dots and strokes; all so similar, yet each unique and a separate entity within a constrained system. Then the pace accelerates and the cycle starts again. A landscape, a portrait, a side-step to an array of parallel lines, then who knows what next. That’s the exciting pull. It’s not a desire to create, it’s a perpetual journey to discover what I can paint.
Current work.
Having spent the autumn of 2025 exploring the idea of bespoke shapes that fade from one to the other on brightly coloured paper with brightly coloured pencils, I’m now looking at black and white lines and neat-and-considered mark making. I love repetition, especially when each iteration of cycle deviates marginally from the previous.
Oil pastel portraits and copies.
Oil pastel portraits and copies.
Oil on canvas.
Caran D'ache crayons on tinted paper.
Rain coming in as my children run on the beach. Caran D'ache crayons on tinted paper.
Patterned lines. Drawing ink on tinted paper.
Curves and dots. Acrylic paint on top of drawing ink on tinted paper.
OIl pastel on textured black card.
Experiments with line and blocks of colour.
Crayon on tinted paper.
Recent pieces on paper.
Coloured pencil, crayons, pastels and oil paints.
Caran D'ache crayons on tinted paper.
Caran D'ache crayons on tinted paper.
Paint pens on coloured paper.
Caran D'ache crayons on coloured paper.
Caran D'ache crayons on coloured paper.
Oil paint on canvas.
White pencil on dark brown paper.
White pencil on dark brown paper.
Coloured pencil on coloured paper.
Coloured pencil on coloured paper.
Coloured pencil on coloured paper.
Bigger works in my studio.
Larger paintings in oils and acrylics. Experiments with oil pastels. Colour. All the colours at the same time.
My studio. On a tidy day.
Prepping canvases.
My largest painting in a while.
Oil paint on canvas.
Acrylic on board.
Acrylic on board.
Acrylic on board.
Acrylic on board.
Oil pastel on textured paper.
Oil on board.
Oil on board.
Oil on board.
Oil on Canvas. Taken from an original painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.
Oil on Canvas. Taken from an original painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.
Oil on board.
Oil on Canvas. Taken from an original painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.
Sketchbooks and life-drawing.
Works drawn whilst out-and-about or at life-drawing classes.
Sketchbook page drawn in crayon.
Sketchbook page drawn in crayon.
Sketchbook page drawn in crayon.
Sketchbook page drawn in crayon.