About me

I was born in 1967 in Newcastle upon Tyne, on the day the Beatles released the Sgt. Pepper album. I’ve always been looking, drawing and painting. I trained in illustration at Kingston University, and then took a post-grad degree at Central St Martin’s School of Art.

As a freelance illustrator I produced images for publishing houses, corporate brochures and packaging. My clients included Random House, Penguin Books, PWC, Royal Mail, Marks and Spencer and Heathcote and Ivory. After a while though, I started to weary of the constraints of working to commercial briefs...

I began to focus on making my own work, and curated three solo shows in London venues before being invited to exhibit at Chris Beetles gallery in London’s St James’s. Two successful solo shows followed. I continue to collaborate with other galleries and artists in group and solo shows: see further details of past exhibitions here.

Over the years I’ve taught art as well, having a City and Guilds qualification in Teaching and Learning. I have designed and run art courses for adults, and SEN adults. I occasionally visit schools to give one day workshops in drawing and painting - one session memorably coincided with the school Ofsted inspection, and helped the school to gain a Grade 1 award. I also spent one summer as resident art tutor for a holiday company in the Italian Dolomites.

Working practice

At first my paintings depicted places I’d visited, including China, India and the Mediterranean. I like capturing atmosphere and the effects of light. Over time I felt I was stuck creating what seemed to me to be over-representational images, and I began thinking about what I really found most satisfying. I wanted to develop a more personal approach, but wasn’t sure how to go about it.

I enrolled on courses at Hampstead School of Art and the Royal Drawing School, and gradually became more confident about taking a new direction. I realised I didn’t need to spell things out so clearly, and could allow the mark-making to speak for itself. I’ve now started to work on a larger scale, use marks more expressively and enjoy the abstract qualities of the paint. I’ve returned to my old love of collage as a way of simplifying shapes, and I often experiment with printmaking to layer up unpredictable textures and images.

We’ve now lived near Hampstead Heath in northwest London for 25 years, and being able to visit the same spots over a long period has given me a deeper relationship with my surroundings. I visit certain trees throughout the seasons and use them as vehicles for whatever obsession is trying to find its way to the surface. I still find inspiration from new places, but now I feel that I’m in control of the particular story I want to tell, rather than recording every detail of the landscape.