Making artwork and being involved in art education has been, and still is, the driving force and energy that permeates my life. As a young teenage student, I looked to the Impressionists. I was fascinated by the freedom in their painting. As my interest and knowledge grew I began to understand how the history of mankind was defined through the history of art. I looked to prehistoric and historical art, and that interest has never left me.

I work as a fine art painter based in the north west of the United Kingdom in the coastal town of Southport, Lancashire.

My paintings are predominantly, but not entirely, non-figurative. They are laden with representational sources and references related to memories of places, literature and sound. Music is very much a part of how I produce work. I listen to all types of music, mainly instrumental music. I take inspiration from different genres including historical and contemporary classical music such as Edgard Varese and Stravinsky. I favour contemporary jazz fusion and in particular artists such as Miles Davis, Don Cherry and Alice Coltrane together with contemporary classical/orchestral compositions by Frank Zappa, Harold Budd and Brian Eno.  I continue to be inspired by other art practitioners such as Barbara Rae, Helen Frankenthaler, Hans Hoffman, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman and Alan Davie to name but a few together with historical and cultural references.   

Painting for me, is like taking a walk in an unfamiliar location, you never know quite which way you’re going to go or what you’ll find yourself focusing on. I gain inspiration from many sources such as different locations and cultures locally, regionally and internationally. Literature and music enrich my understanding of purpose, expression and visual articulation. Colour is a vital visual ingredient in my work. It’s difficult to talk about colour as an “idea” in a rational way, yet nothing can compare with its infinite possibilities and the multiplicity of its possible meanings. A smudge, a smear, a stroke of colour can be any number of things depending on shape, transparency, density, scale and context etc. The context for the more abstract paintings lies in a vocabulary of motifs, occasional text, symbols and gestural mark making.  They are glancing episodes set in illusionistic spaces. There is nothing clever here. I just like the “feel of painting”.

My work is about recording what I see, feel and hear in different locations. These locations are places that I am familiar with and frequently re-visit. Such locations are ‘footprints’ of my own life experiences and they are permeated with memories and saturated with feelings. These places are, in most cases, substantial. They exist and are part of a material world. Occasionally the locations are ethereal and are derived from sources which are abstract and transcendental. The sources here are lyrical and the settings lie within the aesthetics of emotions and lyrical abstraction.

Naming paintings is an important part of making artwork. The titles you choose are frequently seen as clues to the sources or meaning of the artwork. I often get told objects, spaces and sometimes figures can be seen in the work. I think that such statements are highly valued and appreciated because what a viewer brings to the artwork is their own viewpoint and what it means to them is key to their interest.  Art historian James Elkins said "Seeing alters the thing that is seen and transforms the seer”.  It makes you think about all the vision you have and all that you take for granted. Most of the time we see only what we want to see and our vision and understanding is limited, and other elements of our existence become invisible. I am fascinated by the act of seeing and how it affects both the object seen and the one seeing. I am intrigued by a sense of ambiguity.  All my paintings are built in layers, each subsequent layer adding to a series of cancellations which partially veil and cover the applications of colour, and spark improvisations. I use oil and acrylic mediums, dyes, inks, encaustic and cold wax medium and additional surface materials such as sand and crushed sea shells. The paintings I make are there to be experienced, they are in themselves events expressed through the gestures and physical act of painting. They are responses to what is seen and heard and they will be perceived by the onlooker's feelings, background and temperament.