Artist Statement
Inspired by painters on both sides of the Atlantic, but especially the Bay Area Figurative Movement, I use sketch, collage, digital photography and Adobe Photoshop to explore compositions based on plants and other found objects sourced from my home, my garden and my surroundings, which I then paint in oils on board.
Born on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, with its stone quarries, cliffs and wide views across field and scrub to the English Channel, and now living in the Sussex harbour town of Newhaven, I have always made my home in “well-used” coastal places of industry. I like the edges of things; the changing light; the space of the coast and the sea. And one way or another all this has had its effect on my work.
I began painting when I was about 13, encouraged by a school teacher, Richard Pikesley. We actually used oil paint in class, which doesn’t really happen in UK schools anymore. I have continued to work with oil because I love the way it pours, stains, glows, solidifies and dries. I love its history, its vigour and its tricks.
The mainly abstract style of my student years and later as a member of the Brighton Phoenix Co-operative took a more representational turn twelve years ago, leading to the current and continuing focus on still life.
In my practice I aspire to:
• Exploit the way the camera responds to strong contrasts of light
• Explore to its full the singular play oil painting allows between the worked surface and the illusion of space which that surface both creates and interrupts
• Catch things at the moment of appearance
• Interrogate the changing nature of perception
• Create an emotional pull to the fleeting illumination of lone objects against shadow
• Make unique contemplative works of art
• Generate new bodies of work through a process of constant enquiry
• Renew for myself and my audience the surprise of seeing
My work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the UK and in Europe and the USA.
Current portfolios can be viewed at:
https://www.limetreegallery.com