Artist Statement

 I am a London based creative artist who works in oils, painting interesting and unusual people in my own unconventional contemporary way. I love to paint for long periods of time and in isolation, but I never feel alone as my work feels live. When I am painting, I let my work evolve and it is only after a get-acquainted period that I see where my work is going. If my paintings do not reflect "my voice" I am not happy with them and discard them and this produces many challenges.  

I have a unique creative vision which provides unexpected breadth and depth for the viewer. My style is an important element of my work, it is instantly recognisable as my signature and I believe my persona shines through.  I use strong colours in my paintings to depict emotional moods and for the viewer to feel the emotion; I consider oil paints to be the best medium to create these moods.   This aspect of my painting is very important to me.

My work is concerned with humour and satire and I like to focus on how people look, dress and behave which I usually investigate through photography. Additionally, I like to stage my work by asking friends, art colleagues, neighbours and strangers to act out a particular look/narrative for me so that I have an interesting and personal reference. Staging my own references gives me control over the input, throughput and output and which I feel enables me to produce more powerful images.  

I am inspired by the works of Bod Mellor (previously Dawn Mellor) who is noted for their unconventional portraits of well-known figures. Her works are satirical which strongly appeals to me.   I love the strong theatrical feel of her work and the unusual lighting that she includes in her paintings.  Her work is considered to be “performative painting concept which also produces an intellectual distance between subject and object”.  This is an area that I would like to explore for my own practice.

Bod’s work influenced my current concept where my paintings depict how women react to social medial influence in respect of designer handbags. I intend to explore this as an extension to my current practice.

I am interested in creating art around social conventions, changing conventions etc; those arbitrary rules, norms governing the countless behaviours all of us engage in every day without necessarily thinking about them.   In this respect, I look for the unusual in the usual and I intend to develop my practice around this.

Humour, satire, wit, exaggeration, and ridicule will always be a significant part of my practice.  My objective is to bring a smile to viewers faces but equally draw them in to the message and emotions portrayed in my work.