Biography
I am an abstract painter & printmaker who has exhibited widely. My work is in collections in the UK, France, Sweden, China & America. I studied fine art in London in 1970s at Sir John Cass College, North East London Polytechnic & St. Martin’s School of Art. Subsequently I worked in a studio in a large warehouse in Wapping, London. I now live & work in North Oxfordshire. International workshops include Triangle Artists’ Workshop(1986) Upstate New York & Art in Situ(2001,06) Drome,France.
Influences include Indian miniature painting, Japanese prints & ceramics, abstract expressionism, surrealism, Chardin, Manet, Matisse, Hoffman, Sonia Delauney & Gabriele Munter.
I paint in acrylic & oil on canvas & watercolour on paper. My etchings & mono-prints are made using vegetable oil based inks. The paintings vary in size. Canvases are stapled to boards on the floor so that initially the piece has no right way up & as the paint can be very liquid it is easier to handle. They are often not stretched until completion. Finally the painting is titled.
The work speaks for itself It is a synthesis of the internal & external, colour relationships seen & imagined. The ideas are visual & communicate non-verbally reflecting and evoking nature. Differing or opposing elements like accident & order, translucence & opaqueness, stillness & energy create a tension. My practice is a continuing process, the work being offshoots of that process, each one feeding ideas for others. At the start the outcome is unknown. It is like a dialogue between myself & the work. I experiment in painting, taking chances. As an abstract painter I find the possibilities it creates fascinating & exciting. It reflects the world we inhabit.'
