ABOUT THE ARTIST
STATEMENT
As an abstract landscape painter, I explore beauty, atmosphere and the emotional
power of the natural world. I work intuitively with bold mark-making, layered surfaces and harmonious colour, and seeks to capture something beyond representation. Art is my way of making sense of life's experiences — love, loss, joy — not through literal storytelling but through colour and mood. I aim to make work that balances drama with harmony and abstraction with emotional truth. In a world that can sometimes feel overwhelming, I want to create paintings that invite people to reconnect with the beauty and mystery of being alive.
​MY STORY
My home town is on the coast, between the South Downs and the English Channel.
I started drawing at an early age and developed my skills by copying from reproductions of Old Masters in art history books. I was kicked out of art lessons when I was 14, after a row with the teacher, and left school as soon as legally possible, without qualifications.
Over the next 10 years, when I wasn’t on the dole, I worked as a chambermaid, kitchen assistant and circuit board assembler. These were my wilderness years. I continued with art in my spare time, hoping that I’d somehow be discovered and my true life as a famous artist would begin. It didn’t happen.
Eventually, I was so fed up that I decided to make some big changes in my life: I went back to education as a mature student and gained a degree, which led to a job at the National Gallery, followed by a career in magazine publishing. My art practice was developing, I did some life drawing evening classes, started painting in oils and took a year out to do a Foundation Studies course at Chelsea. Seascapes kept cropping up in my work, reminding me how much I missed living by the sea so I said goodbye to London and moved back to the Sussex seaside.
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