I find creating artwork is a way of becoming immersed in another world. I enjoy painting and photomontage. I like using water colour and building a painting up in layers of washes, the great thing is that it can be lifted back off by washing out with clear water. Washes can be used to create incredibly subtle tones. Alternatively water colour can be used in a free way that produces amazing accidental results. I find creating a painting is like forging your way making a new life, or alternative reality,especially with the freedom that the mind has during the process. This in turn can be both therapeutic and troublesome. It’s an intense relationship with the painting, and along the way it takes on it’s own characteristics. It’s the intensity and nature of the personal journey or process that makes it highly addictive, as there is no substitute. Everyday life, daily living, and society, doesn’t allow that kind of personal mental anarchy and control.
I paint, photograph, and make photomontages. I like to invent and design patterns, and enjoy using a strong contrast between light and dark, to produce a vibrant picture surface. It is interesting to play around with the sense of depth in the painting. I also have a strong interest in detail and like to give the paintings and drawings a mechanical quality. Hopefully the work reflects the premise that, the more you look, the more you see. In the larger paintings the different parts join to form, or are part of, larger simpler structures, like faces or spheres.
Mankind’s scientific evolution often raises questionable lines of enquiry and experimentation. In a couple of the paintings I have played with this idea, and have hoped to represent it by the mechanisation of more natural forms, namely flowers. I also like to have fun with photomontage. I hope you enjoy the artwork.