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"My paintings allow me
the freedom to communicate ideas and emotions. They reflect my
feelings and responses to the landscape and the changing elements
of weather and light.
"I paint the landscape
because the very subject allows me total freedom and the biggest
challenge is that the medium takes time to evolve. I like the
ambiguity of painting, I can hide in the landscape a little.
As a conceptual artist I found that once I had developed the
idea in my mind it was complete. Anyone else could have made
it for me. I missed the whole physical activity of creating paintings.
However I still feel part painter, part conceptual artist. One
does not necessarily deny the other and I find a balance of both
approaches to be the most effective.
"The paintings are more
than just a record. They are only successful to me if they capture
a sense of the location. The process of sketching, taking photographs
and observation on site are important, but in making paintings
I get to the point where I want to put them away and focus on
other elements such as the simple resonance of the place.
Each painting evolves through
many different identities, and something about the piece at each
stage can trigger another idea when it is looked at again through
fresh eyes that ultimately leads to a resolved piece of work.
I have to be satisfied that the process cannot go any further
before the work leaves the studio. This can take weeks or months.
"I paint for six hours
a day and work on around fifteen paintings every few months.
I will work on each one until I cannot take it any further at
that stage and then I move on. I try to achieve a balance between
studio and location time and I travel a great deal in the North
to find new inspiration from places I have not visited before.
If circumstances allow it I should like to travel and paint on
the way, returning to certain places again and again.
"My work often has links
and visual themes, for example, I love trees and evening light,
and one of the best places I have found is West Burton, Wensleydale.
The challenge of the mountains and shifting light in the Lakes
is also exciting and I spend some weeks a year in Cumbria. Helmsley,
the North Yorkshire Moors and coast are so familiar to me from
my childhood, but I am always in search of new experience and
I feel as if my life is increasingly more focused. I want to
use this energy to create precious lasting paintings which have
integrity. I find inspiration in music, poetry and literature
as well as nature. Music from a wide variety of genres and artists
is always played when I work. Listening to music as I paint and
travel gives me the emotional energy to sustain the amount of
painting I do each day, and adds drama to the work.
The process and practice of painting is a very isolated one,
and it suits me to work in this way, though in contrast I also
enjoy the process of exhibiting my finished work and especially
talking to the people who buy the landscapes, and then the process
comes full circle when someone else connects with the landscape
and the ideas that have inspired me."
1987 Foundation Course in Art & Design at York College of
Arts & Technology.
1988-91 BA (Hons) Fine Art
at Manchester Metropolitan University. 2:1
Commission for HM Customs &
Excise, Rally Quays, Salford. |
