Degree: BA Hons Economics
University: University of Birmingham
Painting is a kind of ecstasy for me, an intense and personal struggle to bring to life a private world of accumulated visual memory and image.
It can indeed be when it goes well, it is exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time!
Subject matter is not so important and so my work can be quite wide ranging. Influences and inspiration often arise from images (even words or phrases, especially poetry) in current affairs and the world around me; particularly if they strike a chord from my own past of trigger distant personal memories.
As an artist, I am more driven by process than I am by the end product. When a work is finished, I tend to re-focus fairly quickly and turn my mind to the next project.
I guess artistic expression is my ultimate selfishness. It is my own inviolable and private world. I paint because at some elemental level I have to and because it calms my soul. It is like breathing, some things are that simple!
In essence, the motivation to create art is for me, an emotional response to the effects of light, colour and my love of form. First and foremost, I try to use these to raise, the spirits. As a result, the first requirement I place upon myself is that my work must be visually arresting. One of my abiding hopes is that visual expression, like music, can serve to engender a greater sense of wellbeing- in observer and creator alike.
I believe that art at its best can and should be a simple and joyful experience as well as a vehicle for asking more fundamental questions about what it means to be human.