Light. Colour. Memory. Space.
Painter based in North Essex
I’m an artist who never stands still.
Constantly experimenting and finding moments in time that are worth painting and painting them.
I graduated from the Slade School of Art in the 80’s and have been teaching and working as an artist and a tour guide ever since.
Working with all mediums - acrylic, watercolour, pastel and oil, I build up layers along the way to come to the final artwork, finding that these all help push the idea along.
I like to think how the landscape I’m creating will appeal to someone who has never seen that landscape. So to get to the abstract work, I have to go through figurative layers.
I work from my studio in North Essex overlooking the River Stour and teach weekly classes from the studio and via Zoom, as well as running art retreats abroad.
Inspiration.
My work aims to capture memories of places I have visited and memorable experiences I have lived.
By capturing the feeling produced by the colour, light and space of a place rather than what it actually looked like.
I enjoy going back to places that I know and treating them with a new set of colours and light.
Process.
I sketch on site, take lots of photos and then when I’m back in the studio I use those along with my memory to synthesise a painting using everything I’ve gathered to build it up.
There are a number of processes that I go through before coming to the final artwork. Sometimes, I hold the images in my head for quite a while. And then I push the idea along by going into different mediums, whether that’s sketches on paper, ipad, watercolour, acrylic, oil or collage.
Colour does most of the work.
I often do abstract & figurative workings of the same subject.
I like to go back to subjects and places again and again, constantly experimenting and trying to find new ways of expressing the core of the memory or the landscape. Also thinking how would that landscape appeal to someone who has never seen it.
If you want to check out some of my workings, you can see those here.
