I attended art college in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s during a period when ‘Abstract Expressionism ‘ was all the rage .There was pressure to conform but for me it held no excitement; it all seemed to have been done before and I did not want to jump onto what I felt then had become a bandwagon; it had reached it’s peak in the 1950’s with paintings ,such as Ad Reinhardt’s black canvases which had no colour , texture, subject matter. Where can one go from there?
I saw no direction, so I went to the other extreme ; I began to paint every blade of grass, every leaf on a tree and every brick in a wall. To learn technique , I referred back to Old Master paintings, observing their use of colour and composition.

 

 

Most of my paintings are based on incidents and landscapes I have observed. They are determined by my surroundings and where I am living, in a city or the countryside.

 

 

A painting should be like a window ; it should lure and transport the observer into another world whether it is a scenic fantasy or a realistic landscape.

 

 

The spirit of life is the most important element to me, so it is my aim to capture either the essence of a place , way of life or a group of people.

 

 

As a professional artist, I do paint to commission, and have recently painted a wedding at Portland Castle, which included all the quests and a view of St. George’s Church on Portland with the quarries in the foreground.

 

 

Courtesy of the artist’s website.