My Journey
As a budding artist coming out of the traditional school system , it was an invitation to attend both the Norwich School of Art and Goldsmiths School of art... and the teachings, the interactive discussions and the discoveries of possibility, which I encountered there, that really opened my eyes to the vast world of Art..
Meeting and spending a lot of time with established artists such as Brian Chalkley, Basil Beattie, Michael Craig Martin, John Bellamy, Bert Irvin, Harry Thubron...aswell as discovering works like the majestic scale of Frank Stella, the freedom within the works of Jackson Pollock and the colour subjects of Jasper Johns...that set me on my journey with the knowledge and confidence that nothing had limits in art, and that there were no bounderies in expressing my creativity.
My journey into the world of painting with scale at this time...using large canvases that were new to me....along with experimenting using a variety of media in a process of discovery, is what established the methods which resonated with me and which I still use today. I continue to resent the restrictions of the canvas perimeters...and using a variety of new shapes and forms as a tool, I try to create the feeling of some sort of expansion which continues outside of the canvas. I also aim to create contrast within the paintings, using texture, coupled with forms, shapes, colour and conflicting marks. The journey is exciting and has led to further use of texture as a tool...sometimes creating bigger forms in order to get a sense of the colored forms by touching them..being a part of the painting. It is the interaction of these cumbersome, slow clumsy textured shapes and the contrast to the active marks in which they live, that continues to excite me and drive the journey that still brings new discoveries and expressions out of me. Thank you to those other great artists in the world that have, and continue to, inspire...
