Colour is my key to the door of an Aladdin’s cave. When I treat colour effectively, it’s like revealing a treasure trove of exciting and unexpected things in a secret place.
Each colour has its own character which with the right intervention can foster a unique connection with another. Relationships can vary where two colours have the ability to integrate or repel one another. My aim is to offer a combination that creates harmony, beauty and energy while avoiding impoverishment embodied by coarseness and negativity. My real satisfaction however, comes from my audience identifying these alliances within the whole or any part of the painting.
I begin a piece with little consideration towards the finished article. The physical landscape of the North Downs surrounding my studio is the only vehicle I use to influence these abstract works. The canvas will evolve as I layer on more colour while manipulating the transparency, viscosity and flow of brush marks. These elements I’ll pursue until the canvas sings and the door to the cave is open. The result, after what is often a labour intensive process can look and feel as spontaneous as a chemical reaction.
Acrylics are a superb medium for attaining these goals. They are malleable, mix well and relatively quick drying depending on the thickness I choose to lay down. A final coat of gloss enhances the feeling of energy and character that would ordinarily be unobtainable.
These new explorations in colour challenge an inherent resistance I had to using colours unhindered. It has been a liberating performance and experience for me and I view these new paintings as each having a life and character of their own.
My silkscreen prints reflect a combination of 60’s Pop Art and British eccentricity. Photographic images sit under, over or next to shapes and layers of colour in order to deliver a well designed balance between elements. Printed patterns and images can repeat in such a way as to create a deliberate chaos and consequently become new images themselves. My training and experience as a graphic designer gives me an understanding of how I can create harmony, awkwardness and humour with the images that I shoot myself to work with. The impact of Rauschenberg, Warhol and Terry Gilliam runs deep. If I produce prints with equal dynamism then I can consider myself content.
A fine art graduate, I now run the motion graphics department of a UK national broadcaster. I'm lucky enough to have a painting studio and a place to print and the work I've produced has lead to several exhibitions. Living in relative rural isolation, I realised that to document my progress would help my practice evolve and enable me to interact with other remote artists and designers. The motivation for creating artworks are simply colour, mark making, layering and viscosity. These elements, brought together in the right way will always be vital to me in creating energy and life.
