About Me
Like many artists I have been drawing and painting since my earliest memories, taught and encouraged by my Father who is now a retired architect and established artist. I attended the South East Essex College of Art and Design after leaving school, I started to turn my creativity towards my love of design and film and pursued my further education in prototype and special effects modelmaking. It was here that I specifically remember my love of painting and drawing being rekindled by my tutors. Introducing me to life drawing which lead to sketching and observational techniques which were to aid and promote the design process, but also helped with the realisation that expressing myself through mark making, drawing and painting was a fundamental desire.
Graduating with a BA Hons degree in Three Dimensional Design from Kent Institute of Art & Design (Now University of Creative Arts) in 1999 I left University and started working in the automotive industry as a Rapid Prototyping Modelmaker and later as an architectural Modelmaker.
A very large penny finally dropped after a really bad day at work, I remember rushing home and reaching for a rather large board backed canvas which I had made whilst at KIAD, some old paints, inks and I grabbed a watering can and let rip. The painting took an afternoon to create and about a week to dry. I wasn’t really expecting anything much but the result was to shape the way that I was to paint to this day, with energy and passion!
I soon came to express myself more and more through paintings. I developed a style to enable me to quickly capture the feeling of the subject, rather than worrying too much about the finer details. This was a necessity as my main subject of inspiration changes with every passing moment. The size and mess created during painting meant that I was best suited to working outside, which was perfect as it gave me the opportunity of putting me in front of my subject. The windows of opportunity granted by the British weather are often limited, so when carrying canvases and paints up steep footpaths to take advantage of view points, I would often make the most of the time available and paint a series of pieces at one time. This technique meant that painting would be periodic, in some cases months or years would pass between series.
In 2005 I moved to Devon and acquired a great little artist studio in the middle of the countryside. Having this base to work from meant that I was able to work both in the environment that I loved so much but also undercover when the weather was against me. This also afforded me the ability to create some more experimental abstract pieces.
Whilst in Devon I exhibited at several Open Studio events and organised a joint exhibition with my Father, the aptly named “Father & Son” exhibition. This joint exhibition was something that I was very keen to organise as my Father was such an early inspiration and constant driving force for me to want to become an artist.
In 2013 I moved to Somerset and after a few years with not much painting happening I decided to build my own studio at the end of my garden. I decided to build the studio myself as a labour of love. I designed it with a gambrel roof (much like a Dutch Barn) to give me the most height possible. As my garden is on a steep slope I needed to excavate around 20 tonnes of soil, all by hand and wheelbarrow as access was severely restricted. A brief stint as a stone mason’s assistant gave me enough knowledge to build the retaining walls and lay the foundations. The studio itself was machined in Romania and delivered a few months later as a large flatpack (Instructions barely included)! I reconditioned an old Belfast sink that I unearthed during my excavation, configured the roof gutters to harvest rainwater in a waterbutt and installed a cast iron hand water-pump in the studio to bring water into my newly refurbished sink for general rinsing and cleaning. The end result was more than worth the blood, sweat and tears.
After moving to Somerset I joined the Somerset Contemporary Artist’s Network (SCAN) where I exhibited periodically and I made friends with fellow artists that would totally change my life by inspiring and motivating me in my artwork. Most notably the encouragement and advice from abstract artist, ashar, and printmaker and artist Caroline Mornement.
I continued to develop my own style finding a huge wealth of inspiration following a trip to Iceland. With several exhibitions looming, on the 15th March 2016 I committed myself completely to become a full-time professional artist and haven’t looked back since.
