Early on, I was influenced by the School of London artists. I still have a strong admiration of the approach that is visible in the works of Leon Kossoff. The directness of line in his drawn and painted works, is always so alive when I encounter them. I have executed works that have related to the lived world, especially in my earlier art world and more recent covid related imagery.

In that period there would have been perceived comparable qualities with Philip Guston, the darker emotions, the direct drawn and painted lines more evocative. I came to realise the need to not obscure the final images with unnecessary details. On the whole my approach is intended to relate to an imagined place which comments on our present state in a more indirect manner. However detached our imagination can seem to be, reality will always creep in and camouflage itself amongst the deployed symbols, characters, settings and scenarios.

The beginning of a new work always spurs on from a period of sketching onto found scraps and other regular supports. The unravelling of each new idea grows and changes with each additional attempt, until I feel comfortable that it is ready to become something larger and, I hope, bolder in a visual sense. I strive for the immediacy in my brushwork to be evident in the final work.

The impossibility of exact repetition allows me a certain element of control in terms of where each stroke goes and what it does. This degree of imprecision to the ferruled hairs of the brush brings an unpredictable nature to the proceedings. The paintings can find their final state rapidly without a struggle, or they can demand chance tweaks that could unbalance what has already been achieved. This has two sides. It is precarious zone that might kill ideas which seemed full of promise. At the same time it allows peeks into directions that are full of potential.

The stain and shine of ink is something I am enjoying exploring and learning more about. The way it reacts to different surfaces, surprises me and spurs me on with the different blacks it presents back to me. I like to use materials that have a distinct voice when used. There was always a conflict inside myself when using paint. In the first instance with enamel paints, then the discovery of the oily finish and considerately more rapid drying time of Hammerite, I have now found a medium that allows me to be direct whilst not making me too precious about about what then appears. The ability to accept the disasters that will arrive and rework them into something more agreeable, was previously an impossibility as I had to wait up to 12 months for some of the oils to dry. I have waited so long for this. A preciousness can easily arrive, something I am glad I am not subjected to anymore. There are new ways of painting I will try out when the right imagery fits with it. There is a need to have change and difference, something that keeps everything more alive and urgent. My paintings are not the result of mechanical exercise or experiment. I need to experience as much while I am painting as the later viewer will take from them when they are hung on wall.

The initial reasons for restricting myself to black and white was to concentrate the viewers gaze onto the brush strokes and the textural quality over the entire support. By removing myself from the other available hues, the build up of pigment and the image it became gained greater dominance. I am still intent on using the same logic with my current imagery. It allows my concepts to appear bigger and more visible, especially given the actual small dimensions of the works that demand a closer viewing.

There is a simplicity to my work. It appears effortless and looks made in the moment as if all the studies that preempted them were of no consequence. This has taken my life up to now to be able to cut things down to the near abstraction I am headed towards. The confidence to be honest in the imagery I need to birth and present, is something I have slowly learned over too many years. I do like the idea of presenting a complete whole series in a suitable space, to be able to see and understand the realisations that occurred and are now defiantly visible. But with the nature of the art world, such situations are limited. So they tend to be shown in a more fractured way, where they exert a very different singular presence.

I have used more personal elements in my work as I have felt more confident in what I am attempting to achieve. That openness is important as it allows me to not second guess myself and rely on safer routes. When I stop editing myself, overthinking and holding back, that is when I feel there is progress in the studio. I still don’t understand with any certainty what I am doing, which is how it should be, but I am enjoying the journey.

In the past I worked from source material. With time I found that it was restrictive and that I needed a more open approach. The symbols I now use have built up and altered over the years, gaining differing appearances and perceived qualities. It can seem quite schizophrenic at times when I see vastly different worlds come together in a few hours. Each hoping to be pushed that bit further towards paint and greater scale. There are so many potentials still waiting to see where they will be tested out, but new concepts are always arriving to also need to be explored. I seem to be lost in conjuring up imagery that relates to the human experience, in a way that can surprise me at times. Dogs, vans, holes, arachnids, they are each taking me somewhere that I am uncertain about, that pushes my practice in a direction I did not anticipate attempting. There is always a variety of supports waiting to be worked over, paper, cardboard, wood, canvas, panels, they are all tucked somewhere away and will find a purpose with time. Also with older less successful paintings, I tend to search them out in the hope of reinvigorating them. They can form a new series, join an existing one or be an oddball one off, but they do feed off each other and help to give me glimmers of what they could have been if I had been braver. The sketchbooks of ideas are strewn everywhere, I don’t tend to copy direct from them and prefer to allow my memories of each study to guide me when I then paint.

I have studied film making in the past, and think the concept of the right scene, the scene which seems effortless, has taken on an active presence where painting is involved. The drawn painted line comparable to the expedient story board image. Saying everything it needs to be with just sufficient information, nothing wasted, nothing decorative added, just what is needed, a painterly response to the quiet perfections of Brancusi, something I have strived towards without purposely leading myself there. The absence of text or captions allows for a multiplicity of responses to the same exact image. That same image can be so much more than it appears to be, a result of the experiences and expectations of the viewer.

Poetry has always been very important to me. It allows me to take in each condensed scene and be transported to where the writer intended me to be. The subtle power of poetry has always seemed the closest written equivalent to painted imagery. The sparsity of words used, the necessity for each to be there in set place, all to create a feeling or sensation that wasn’t there before the first word was even read. I also do get drawn into writing and have been published at times in the past, unfortunately it can be difficult to balance drawn, painted and written pursuits, whilst giving each the time and consideration they deserve. I have always been a more dystopian reader, so the recent world events have become too comparatively real and I have struggled to return to reading in the same fashion.

The painter always has a role in society, a role which is continually shifting dependent on the world their works exist within. It can be to entertain, it can be to inform. Their visual message is always relevant and necessary even if it doesn’t feel like that at times. The complexities of hoped for recognition and success complicate the almost spiritual or medicinal power that painting can exert and display. To paint is to create something that is specific to the artist and is an extension of the artist far beyond their meagre bodily limits. The power of the artist is in their ability to say what others may not be willing to say, to be able to open up and not regret where their brush strokes lead them. Very much a court jester in their freedom to speak through paint, hopefully with eyes on them that are observing them seriously and not merely as passing entertainment.

For quite a few years now my imagery with its connection to the things of the real world, has been drifting away into a space of my own making, an alternate environment. There are beings to populate it with and I am widening its horizon with each new inhabitant and the space they contain, it feels good to allow myself this unrestricted freedom, even when I feel wary at what transpires. The immediacy which can be seen in certain London School painters, a quality which I feel gives each brush stroke so much more relevance and power, a semblance of their honesty, is something I want to achieve.