I'm interested in painting the natural world. I've recently begun to focus more on relating human and animal figures into my landscapes, especially in current oil paintings of the Picos Mountains of Spain, which I felt really grateful to visit at one point last year as they are incredibly and powerfully beautiful, and took me into a place removed from the drift of things. I was drawn to the way of life in the village I stayed in, based around sheep and cow farming and the production of cheese.
This experience was moving also through the poignancy of the impacts of the current coronavirus crisis on the economy of the area, with small-scale tourism impacted, and a sense of an aging population and way of life at a point of change and perhaps under threat.
I work by aiming to attune myself to a place and absorb something of its atmosphere in as sponge-like a way as I can, including learning something of its history and current ways of life and wildlife and environment conditions. I then work in my studio using a range of photos I've taken in conjunction with my impressions, and maybe drawings, close to the time I've been there. My method is to keep building up dashes and washes of colour and textural marks and to scrape back/apply new paint layers: generally looking for as much variety of hues as I can, until a sense of a whole emerges.
Over the next while I'm going to have fun painting Watercolours of flowers and insects from life around about outside and indoors, which I will have for sale, amongst other work, at this summer's Cambridge Open Studios.
Cambridge University: English Literature BA
The City Lit, London: Foundation Art
The London School of Printing: Post Grad Diploma in Publishing
Heatherleys Art College: Portraiture Course
Cheltenham College of Art: BA Drawing Module
Stroud College: Life Drawing
Open College of Arts: Certificate in Drawing and Painting
Landscape Paintings 