

AESTHETIC
My practice is rooted in the tradition of British and European figurative painting. Working from in situ observation and executed predominantly in oils, egg tempera and watercolour, the works are a result of many hours spent working on mountain tops and lowland valleys or in the studio with familiar sitters. My cast of characters relate in some way to the landscape around them, as referenced by backdrops, window glimpses or some trace of its presence. I attempt to create a link between the interior worlds we inhabit and our relationship with the land. When we move outside and toward the mountains we also take a journey inwards into ourselves. Upon return, the experience grows in us.
The figurative paintings are often introspective, psychologically tense and carry an undertow of pathos. Intensity of mark making, emotional resonance and a dialectic between subjective beauty and corporal honesty typify my aesthetic. It is an excoriating process. The layering, removing and scouring of the painted surface eventually build a rich profile of the subject. The use of traditional materials, such as lead white and its layered application root the work in a long tradition of painting, but I hope to bring these methods into a contemporary and personal visual language.
The land is a blast furnace for the imagination - undulations taking on strange forms, sleeping figures, coffins, headstones, broken forgotten monuments flung aside by a giant harried hand.
Ultimately it is drama that I seek and it is drama that I find in the landscapes I love to paint. The work on paper moves between the mountains of Snowdonia to locations across the Lake District. They range from impulsive, weather beaten responses on the side of a mountain to coastal rock formations and lowland valley scenes. I attempt to carry drama through use of varied mark making, contrasting open spaces with the intensely observed, chiaroscuro, accident and abstraction. Often the elements play a role in the outcome of work, with pigment and materials being blown across the surface. I return to locations repeatedly to complete the paintings and the resulting work is a palimpsest of my experience.