Education/Career
1973 Born Stone Staffordshire
1991-1992 Walsall College of Art
1992-1995 Falmouth College of Art
Artist’s Statement
I identify myself principally as a draughtsman; drawing being the most unencumbered and immediate form of image-making. My work is made with an intense and energetic immediacy, working instinctively rather than methodically, keeping me physically and emotionally involved in the process. I crush soft pastel in my hands rubbing the dust into the paper in wide sweeps of colour gradually manipulating the material to build up a thick layered surface using the ball of my thumb or the heel of my hand.
I am interested in and influenced by the dramatic imagery of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century painting. I admire the idea of the contemplation of landscape in the Romantic spirit, found in the work of the German Romantics like Casper David Frederick and the notion of the grandeur of the landscape as expressed in the work of the American Subliminal Painters like Sanford Robinson Gifford and Frederick Edwin Church. These artists adopted the term ‘Luminism’, defined as light in the landscape and the effect that light has on the landscape and objects within it.
As a contemporary artist choosing to adopt this approach to light in the landscape, my interest is not to make straight forward topographical images that are illustrations of place. Instead I am attempting to make imagery that is descriptive of the circumstances under which the subject is viewed; images which convey a sense of place. The drawings are emotional reactions to events and experiences evolving in front of me; events happening or about to happen. The images become like fading memories or captured moments in time. The making of the work is in itself a set of actions and events which creates a harmony between my process and my interpretation of the subject.
Societies:
Member – The Pastel Society
Awards:
2011 Visitors Choice Award, National Art Open Exhibition, Chichester.
2011 Regional Prize, National Open Art Exhibition, Chichester.
2011 Elected Member of the Pastel Society UK, Federation of British Artists, Mall Galleries, London.
2010 City of Glasgow Prize, Royal Glasgow Institute of the fine Arts.
2010 Connell and Connell prize, Scottish Society of Artists, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.
2008 Shell Premium Award, Aberdeen Artists, Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery.
2007 Chairman’s Purchase Prize, Discerning Eye Exhibition, London.
2004 Most popular work in the exhibition, Hunting Art Prizes.
2000 Alexander Graham Munro Travel Award, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour.
Collections:
Bank of Scotland
City of Edinburgh, City Art Centre, Jean F Watson Bequest Fund.
Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery, Kelvin Grove Glasgow.
Paintings in Hospitals Scotland.
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2013 ‘Northern Light’ Lemon Street Gallery, Truro.
2012 'Time Lapses' Open Eye Gallery Edinburgh
2011 ‘New Pastels’ Beaux Arts, Bath.
2010 ‘Festival Exhibition’ Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh.
2009 ‘In Series’ Lemon Street Gallery, Truro.
2008 ‘Luminism’ Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh.
2006 ‘Time and Place’ Beaux Arts, Bath.
2005 ‘Nostalgia’ Lemon Street Gallery, Truro.
2000 ‘Night Life’ The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh.
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2008 Aberdeen Artists, Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery.
2007 Discerning Eye Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London.
2007 Salon 2007, ‘New British Paintings and Works on Paper’ Portobello Road, London.
2006 ‘Roter Salon’ Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.
2006 The Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space, London and touring of the UK.
2006 ‘Best of British’ Chelsea Art Gallery, Palo Alto, California.
2002 The Hunting Art Prizes, Royal College of Art, London.
2004 The Hunting Art Prizes, Royal College of Art, London.
1999 Cheltenham Open Drawing Exhibition, touring to:
The European Drawing Collection Hull, Karl Hofer Gesellschaft,
The Western Banhof Charlottenburgh, Berlin.
