paintings
I have been painting on and off for years and mostly use acrylic paints which I often pair with other mixed media elements such as powder pigments, coloured inks and gummed tape..I paint portraits and landscapes in which I generally try to introduce some element of controlled accident which I then have to react to and attempt to work with, but often when I start a painting I have no definite preconception of where the painting will take me.
Acrylics and gummed paper strips on canvas board, 50.7 x 67 cm, 2016
Acrylics & powder pigments on canvas, 59.5 x 59.5 cm, 2015.
Acrylics & mixed media on canvas, 59.5 x 59.5 cm, 2014.
Acrylics & powder pigments on canvas, 59.5 x 59.5 cm, 2015.
Acrylics & mixed media on canvas, 81 x 60 cm, 2012. Inspired by German painter, Charline von Heyl, I followed her general approach by bypassing any prior planning stages plunge into the painting stage and responding directly to what was happening on canvas. I started off with strong vertical blue stripes which I then partly overpainted. Somehow a cityscape seemed to emerge from the canvas. Though using a similar process, my outcome is totally different from Von Heyl's work.
Acrylics on canvas, 40 x 30 cm, 2012. This is a portrait of my daughter with facepaint on. It originated from a series of photographs I took in which I explored notions of skin colour and identity. I was inspired by Hans Silvester's book "Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa" in which he photographed Surma and Mursi people of East Africa's Omo valley. They elaborately paint their faces and decorate their hair.
Acrylics on paper, 85 x 60 cm, 2010. This is the Liverpool One bus station with Albert Dock in background on a rainy early evening.
Acrylics & mixed media on canvas, 60 x 50 cm, 2013.
Acrylics & inks on canvas, 61 x 76 cm, 2013. Painting done specifically to commemorate the 2012 Guild celebrations in Preston. I won the 1st Prize at the annual Open Art Exhibition at the Harris Museum that year. Co-incidentally (?!) the building on this painting is the Harris.
Acrylics on paper, 63 x 89 cm, 2010. Francis Bacon's painting style was the inspiration for this painting which I made from a life model.
Acrylics on paper, 60 x 84 cm, 2010. I have tried to capture one of those moments when urban colour, lights and reflections are at their most beautiful: on an early winter evening just after a rain shower.
Acrylics & ink on cavas, 50 x 70 cm, 2012. This painting started off as a reworking of an existing painting of characters found in works by Edgar Allan Poe. I struggled for a long time with a very illustrative and representational interpretation then I abandoned it. A few years later I returned to totally transform it. Slight glimpses of the original underpainting still come through. The fractured targets representing my painting process here. I aimed for one thing but created another.