My paintings are visual triggers for reflection, they don’t aim to give a straight illustrational answer but rather to offer new questions to the viewer. Reflecting about the human condition and the spectrum and extremes of human emotion. They offer moments of reflection on feelings, thoughts, and ideas that are normally brushed off, swept under the rug, classed as unseemly or beyond the bounds of the polite or the acceptable. I’m drawn to our animal urges and reactions, and the influence of an individual’s environment on their behaviour. 

Influenced by the people around me, many of my paintings are populated with subjects near and dear to me. I’m passionate about capturing a subject’s energy, not just their appearance – painting is a way for me to understand someone more deeply, to see them more clearly, to bring them closer. I aim to unveil something usually unseen about the subject, something which is shadowy or hidden in the persona or attitudes they adopt as they navigate daily life. Threaded throughout my work is this interest in the duality of man. 

When I paint, I embrace the unpredictable qualities of the medium – painting is a delicate dance of chance and intervention. I might direct a painting – I never impose: leaving the door open for spontaneity is what allows the medium to really come into its own. I claim no specific method or technique. Rather, each work demands of me a specific approach that befits the particular energy of a subject. 

Art is about exploration, evolution, and a lot of risk-taking. I believe in forgetting everything you learned yesterday to discover something new and valuable in the present. A great painting is often assembled through mistakes that exist in harmony with each other – my challenge is to give them form and shape. 

I offer up avenues for reflection and embrace uncertainty and wonder in my work.