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Places and spaces can have great power over our everyday experiences. My work attempts to explore how different locations and journeys can evoke a range of responses in us, from feelings of peace and harmony to those of discomfort and alarm.
Travelling from the Kent coast to London through the countryside, raises questions for me about what forces are shaping our environment. How do different environments interconnect with each other and what threats exist and and what opportunities are there for improving our experiences.
There is currently much uncertainty about our environmental future, for example coastal landscapes reveal how natural erosion and human interventions are constantly changing the interface of sea and land. Cities are rapidly refiguring as a result of social and political changes. The countryside seems constantly under threat from human interventions and climate change, and interior settings often reflect fluctuating states of domestic stability and instability.
As a result of this precariousness, images of stability and order contrasted with those of slide and fall are frequent features in my work. My background in architecture and urban design are strong influences in my artistic themes and forms, and I constantly move between abstract and expressionistic approaches. I work with a range of media, although I am currently working mainly with collage, painting and wooden assemblages. My abstract wooden constructions symbolically echo the main themes of my paintings either by depicting grid like order, or depicting more random movements between fixed points. I am interested in exploring the coexistence of industrial and natural materials and both linear and vertical landscapes.
I exhibit in group shows in local galleries and at open house events and I welcome requests from visitors to view my work in my studio in Whitstable.
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