For some fifty years as a painter I have attempted to be true to a personal conviction that 'value' follows 'integrity' and to follow intuition brings results. In recent years I have got used to wearing two hats as a painter, acknowledging a genuine impulse which seemed to need satisfying in each of two directions, the abstract and the figurative. The two directions have a lot more in common that is commonly assumed. I find with either course that I more often than not, begin with nothing, the blank canvas, the oily rag... things begin to happen. This is the artist's freedom. One hopes that a painting, which is often an exhilarating experience to make, can also communicate itself to the viewer as an experience, not just as an object. I have always admired painters "of positive assertion and celebration", to use the words of Dr Andrew Patrizio, who explains this manner of assertion to be as "a dance amongst strangers"; "When the dance has stopped, the painting exists." If I conjure ‘stories’ in my recent work, it is with a hope that the contemplative viewer will, in a sense, complete the narrative.

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Born: 1952 Essex

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