Artist Statement:

 

My influences and inspirations come from a passion for trees and woodlands and how we as humans move and respond within the natural world. Using a combination of paint, ply, fire and physical intervention my paintings are an abstract exploration of this visual environment.

 

With a background in design and making, problem solving and physical construction has always been strong elements in my work and an essential part of my creative process. It could be said that each painting is created through a constant stream of decisions and problems that have to be made and solved, the last often the most difficult to make.

 

The light, the darkness, the forms and the emotion I find walking and working within woodlands and the surrounding landscapes provide the influences and abstract concepts that underpin my work. I do not use recognisable elements but build with layers of paint linked to abstract ideas that have been formed by distilling the concept of how woodlands are formed.

 

‘... light and dark, dark and light, repeat, repeat, repeat, over and over again, erode, rearrange, change until we can no more.’

 

With all tree and plant life being sedentary the repeated life and death cycle is contained within a woodland structure highlighting erosion and regeneration as the basic abstract concept of how they are formed. 

The introduction of a flame and the physical working of the surface are integral parts of my paintings representing this destruction and regeneration which not only is a basic element of forming ancient woodlands but also the foundation of all our natural environments. Repeated paint layers of a reductive palette are applied to a ply surface which are subsequently eroded by a combination of burning with flame and heated tools, scraping with various metal edged tools and brushing with different densities of brush and cloths. 

 

‘... and as the darkness engulfs us are we filled with fear and apprehension or do we relish the safety of being unseen.’

 

The darkness, skeletal leafless tree shapes and varying light pattens such as speckle and dapple along with tree and plant structures are also important inspirations in my work and the base structure I use for the paintings being ply board enables me to include the enhanced wood grain by way of controlled burning and for natural elements and textures to be followed and used along with the ability to erode layers of the veneer to produce a depth, all of which I treat as a necessary part of my method of working.

 

‘... abstraction grows from the seed of thought.’

 

With an emphasis on repetition and erosion, often combined with isolated shapes and grand brush strokes and always allowing for chance the paintings are prompted and nudged towards a mutual resolution.

​

​