"Here To Stay." 30" x 24" x 2". Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas.
Painting the Contemporary Surreal
"Protect Our People" 40" x 48". Mixed media on canvas
"Believing is Seeing"
My current ‘Believing is Seeing’ series of work celebrates the exhilarating creativity in painting. It shares
playful experiences with viewers and inspires personalised responses to universal stories.
Springing passionately from painting in isolation during the pandemic, the series was inspired by dramatic stories of individual courage and separation. The extended series builds on this; presenting fragments of familiar imagery arranged to invite an even deeper reflective, individual experience for viewers. I create images with a feeling of life, energy, and contemporary resonance - usually informed by real life events around the globe.
My paintings are unique integrations of colour and mark-making, combined with fragments of collage. I use a mix of media, acrylic paint with crayon, ink, and collaged text and/or photographic references - often showing features of a face or body part. The versatility and speed of mixed media allows me to create layers, sanding back to reveal a history of colours and shapes beneath. This method supports my aim to convey a feeling of emotional depth and complexity. ‘Believing is Seeing’ contains echoes of Surrealist art by
Miro, Kandinsky, Klee, and Magritte.
I always paint in series, using my previous paintings to inform new compositions while maintaining an overall consistency of theme within the body of work. I start each piece with a theme and compositional idea, then allow a natural evolution as I apply mark-making and collaged elements.
As an artist, I am moved by the emotional and sensual effects of colour.
My art has been influenced by colourists of the past such as Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and Picasso. To me, colours and shades are characters in an ensemble.
Warm and cool blues often play a special part in my paintings.
Some viewers have said that my larger paintings remind them of aerial views. This is likely to stem from my longstanding admiration and study of abstract landscape artists such as Hepworth, Nicholson, Lanyon, and Hitchens.
I work from a studio in Cirencester, in the beautiful Cotswolds area of England, participating regularly in exhibitions and Open Studio events, especially in London and Cirencester
Please don't hesitate to get in touch by email if you would like further information about my work, or are interested in a particular painting.
To find out more about my individual tuition and painting classes please visit the website:
Painting Zone Art Workshops