Art & Gallery Space

My goal as a fine art painter is to make work that is accessible and personal, that you can understand in your own way without fear of being wrong. I try to achieve this by making studies from the real, and most often, natural world, and blending them with elements from my imagination, past experience or pure fantasy. In some ways this means I am telling my own story, but I employ a mixture of archetypal imagery and unconcluded narrative to confound a single reading of the story, painting the ignition points of narrative from which a vast array of individual stories, memories or imaginings might spring.

I have always been fascinated by the power of stories, beginning with Fairy Tales, that I have continued to return to over time, extracting new meanings at each stage of my life. During my Masters degree studies, I spent a great deal of time looking into Socio-Narratology. This in depth analysis of stories and how they work within societies and on individuals feeds directly into my practice as an artist. I am dedicated to making paintings that are dialogical, seeking open minded, interpretive and self-reflective viewers with whom they can converse, perhaps, like Fairy Tales, changing their meaning over time.

By engaging with the language of illustration within a Fine Art arena, I have found that my paintings are often met with curiosity but also relief. Something about them takes us back to a time when we were leafing through picture books, perhaps reading the words or maybe making up stories of our own. It is this spirit of uninhibited exploration I would invite you to keep in mind as you view my work. The paintings are not designed to be “understood” or to catch you out. The brush strokes are mine, but the stories are yours, and I always love to hear them.