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.

The latter part of 2026 is evolving into a series of landscape paintings of places I’ve been inspired by in the last year or two. Distilled into solid blocks of flat colour, balanced geometric forms and a close colour range. Currently starting a new chapter in this series based on a visit to the Outer Hebridies this summer.