Began painting in the 1970s.
Attended John Cass school of art.
Maidstone art college.1980s.
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Began painting in the 1970s.
Attended John Cass school of art.
Maidstone art college.1980s.
Paintings 2013
The paintings this year have included quite a few done in watercolour and mixed medium including gouache and pastels.
I tend to work in groups of these over a period of weeks . Unlike acrylic they can only be pushed so far in working on them.
What I like though is that you can get a lot of drawing into them resulting in more complex spatial content. The paintings in acrylic
feel as if they have become less hard edged in a sense and closed by the edges of the canvas . They still have a structure but it is less
defined in the way the painting is organised.
Artist Statement
I start with pre stretched canvas of a certain size giving me an edge to work with and an area that confines the painting.
The physical edge of the canvas acts as a challenge in terms of the organisation and the content of the
painting. I usually have several of these on the go at the same time honing in on some rather than others.
I may decide to work on a painting that I haven’t perhaps seen for a while this allowing me a look at it with fresh eyes.
This helps with some paintings that need a longer period of gestation. So the painting is always in a state of flux and change.
I don’t have a preconceived idea of what I am aiming to do but this becomes apparent as I work on a painting.
For me this is both a challenge and an adventure seeing how far you can travel with it. This way I feel I can bring all of the
painting out in the process of creating. I really like to mix it up and go with the flow of whatever I am working on.
Once the formal elements of a painting are there they have to work together in terms of colour and shape.
The painting is organised when all of these elements are working together. Creating a painting is like a work of fiction
only with the abstract elements as your characters. The narrative element of the painting is really how you set these up in
to work within the painting. The complexity happens as you push the painting on and change it.
I find it intriguing to see how the painting turns out and how other previous paintings are related. I can notice certain
Preoccupations without being overtly conscious of it. I would say there is a lot of content in my painting which really isn’t there by
choice but gets added in along the way. I think this is part of my own visual vocabulary embracing forms and colour and
really wanting to immerse myself in the process.
Painting is an instinctual act as well as a process of exploration that I find myself continuously questioning
as I work. Usually about the surface or about the way the painting is organised, why these forms or colours and what is
working or not. So a painting is finally arrived at after lots of drawing and repainting that goes into it until it feels right.
In that sense painting is an act of faith in oneself that it will all eventually come together. I will push the painting as far as I think it will go.
There aren’t any rules about this just a different group of paintings to work on.
