C. V.
I am a painter living in Norfolk where I have been based for the last 3 years, previously having been in London for over 20 years. Originally I come from Yorkshire.
University
Sunderland University, BA (Hons) Fine Art 1979-1982
Exhibitions
Various group and individual exhibitions during the 1980's and early 1990's including:
1983-94 The Whitechapel Open; The Royal Overseas League; The Cleveland Drawing Biennale; South London Gallery Open; The Guardian sponsored Art for Sale at Whiteleys.
In the mid-1990's I took a break for a few years from art, working full-time and traveling for a year. In 1999 I took a studio in Peckham and began to paint again with a very different style.
Jan 2004 Target Follows Wembley Point Corporate Headquarters
Sept 2004 Bally Shoe Factory, Norwich.
April/May 2005 Inprint at Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester and The Cut, Halesworth.
June 2005 Two person show at The Harleston Gallery, Norfolk.
Sept 2005 Bally Shoe Factory, Norwich.
Aug 2006 Two person show at The Hobart Gallery at the National Trust's Blickling Hall, Norfolk.
June 2007 with InPrint at the Welborne Arts Festival, Norfolk.
July 2007 Mixed show at the Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk.
Collections
I have sold to private collectors in the U. K., Italy and America.
Some Previous Work:
rollover the images below to see an enlargement
'Emma and Debbie' 1983
oil on canvas
'Teapot and Lemons' 1986
pencil on paper
'Modeler' 1990
charcoal on paper
'Untitled Camberwell Abstract'
1995 acrylic on paper
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
WHAT
I am an artist and make paintings and drawings, these are mostly abstract but recently I have been doing some figurative drawings. I will deal firstly with my abstract work and then my most recent figurative work.
As an abstract painter I work in acrylic on canvas or paper, and sometime watercolour on paper. These pictures are colourful and tranquil and, because they are painted with an airbrush, can have a 'digital' look. This is deceptive however, because they are painted in an improvised, ad-hoc way, and undergo many re-paintings and revisions, reflecting my concerns with balancing the formal elements in a traditional abstract-art way, i.e., concerns regarding colour, tone, line and rhythm.
My abstract work can be divided into two main areas of interest, which are often combined:
(1) Making paintings that look like out-of-focus photographs,
e.g., 'Unoccupied' (right), or 'Absent'. I sometimes incorporate elements which look like the result of a faulty printing process - parts where the ink, or one colour, hasn't printed correctly, e.g., 'Recovery' (left) or 'Vacant'.
(2) Using a variety of techniques and building them up into compositions of contrasting areas and patterns, often inspired by natural forms, or things and images noticed in the media, e.g., 'Van Hire'(right), 'Overstock' (below left), or 'Redundant'.
WHY
Unlike photographs which always refer to something else out in the real world - a face, landscape etc., my out-of-focus pictures refer to nothing outside the picture because they are just made up. Because of this I see them as being 
empty (or 'lost'). I want this to represent what I see as our own unsupported, 'groundless' nature, a nature not given to us but one that we create ourselves, i.e. we create our own meanings and purposes in life. In this way its possible to see ourselves as being incomplete or imperfect, and because of this as having an urge to complete ourselves.
Within the contrasting-pattern pictures I mean to reflect the immense variety of media, sign-systems and landscapes that we encounter in our everyday lives.
Within my work, as well as wanting to make a formally attractive, well-balanced image, I want to blur the boundaries between a number of things:
- representation and abstraction. I do this by, firstly, using a traditional style (abstract painting) and then subverting it by painting images that aren't supposed to be allowed within that genre, i.e. 'photographic' looking images with a trompe l'oeil representation of depth.
- the mechanical and the hand-crafted, (or, deliberation and improvisation), I do this by having an unplanned, open way of working and an end result that looks machine-made as if by a camera or computer.
HOW
I actually use a machine instead of a brush to paint my pictures - an airbrush - and spray paint onto canvas or paper. When painting a picture to look photographic I mostly use only 3 colours to emulate the photographic process: red, yellow and blue - plus black and white.
TITLES
The titles come from various sources, most of which have nothing to do with the meaning of the picture. Sometimes they are from things that happen in my everyday life, such as working in a bookshop, or from some music or films I like; and sometimes they do suggest the pictures subject matter, e.g., moving to Diss in Norfolk I painted 'Disappearance' suggesting both my appearance in Diss and the lack of an external reference for the picture - (I have painted several pictures with 'Dis-' in the title).
RECENT WORK
REALISM - As can be seen in the early work shown on the left I have made figurative paintings and drawings in the past, and recently I have had an urge to make figurative images again and have been making some photo-realist drawings. Some of these drawings are masquerading as illustrations from a book, and have white space around them and a false 'fig no.' and 'title' added below. Others have deliberate 'printing errors' - white lines and faded patches - included.
PLEIN AIR - I'm working on a series of landscape drawings from photographs taken from my local area. I have given them a reference to a famous impressionist painting in the 'title' part of the drawing. This is because I want to contrast them to 'plein air' painting and make a landscape picture that seems far removed from that way of working, i.e., something done indoors and without the actual view in front of me. This is not because I don't like the impressionists or painting outdoors but because I don't believe there is any one correct way of capturing reality, there's just different ways. Having the landscape or model in front of you doesn't guarantee truth or integrity, it's just a way (among many) of painting. Poussin and van Ruisdael are as true as Monet and Cezanne. I was always taught the opposite, that being in the presence of the object was paramount, that it somehow would guarantee integrity if not truth, and to use photographs was, in some way, immoral.
Notions of truth and reality can be contentious and difficult to formulate as many scientists, philosophers and faiths will confirm, and that is why I have put 'errors' - lines, interference and missing parts - into some of my realist drawings.
'Untitled Camberwell
Abstract No.5' 1997
acrylic and oil on paper
'Pretty Face' 1999
acrylic on canvas