Growing up in an artistic family in the thriving art colony of St Ives in Cornwall, drawing and painting has always been a part of my life. Taught by my grandfather, father and uncle, my earliest memories involve a sketchbook and pencil, canvas and palette knife, painting and sketching, perched along the cliffs of the West Penwith peninsula.
A move from Cornwall to the diverse and unfamiliar landscape of New Zealand in my late twenties brought fresh inspiration and a new focus and on my return to St Ives a few years later, I set up my studio and began painting full time.
My work from this period in Cornwall was purely abstract; acrylic on canvas applied impasto style, creating vivid and highly textured pieces. Whilst a direct response to the landscape around me, these paintings focused more on colour and form than a sense of place. A decade later, a move to the rolling South Downs in West Sussex, saw a dramatic shift in my work to smaller, figurative, monochromatic studies in Indian ink on paper; rooted in place and dominated in subject matter by the huge skies of the South downs and the sweeping estuaries that pepper the West Sussex coastline.
Many years on, now living on the isle of Arran, my work has yet again undergone a change, marrying together my earlier abstract work and my later figurative work. I still use Indian ink but work once again in colour and on board rather than on paper, allowing me to employ techniques such as sgraffito. The ink is built up in layers or washes and worked back in to many times, giving a vibrancy and depth to each piece. The finished studies are semi abstract in style but still capture a sense of time and place and chart my response to the beautiful landscape of Arran throughout the seasons.
Galleries exhibiting at:
Annan Gallery
164 Woodlands Road, Glasgow G3 6LL
Arran Art Gallery
Shore Road, Whiting Bay, Isle of Arran KA27 8QH
The Strathearn Gallery, 32 West High St, Crieff, Perthshire. PH7 4DL
The Smithy Gallery, 74 Glasgow Road, Blanefield, Glasgow. G63 9HX
Calgary Gallery
Calgary
Isle of Mull
PA75 6QQ
Number Four Gallery
Northfield Farm
St Abbs
Berwickshire
Scottish Borders
TD14 5QF
The Little Art Gallery
Rookwood Road
West Wittering, Chichester
PO20 8LT
