Chinoiserie Exhibition, The Bad Art Gallery, Dublin. September, 2008.

As an artist I am continually inspired from the objects and people around me. To make painting work for me in a sustainable, intuitive and meaningful way, I
have made it a full time way of life.  I need to get to my subject matter on a daily basis, so I look to the local landscape, the garden, my daughters, still life
objects etc, so that I can paint and draw directly from life whenever I can, however I also source ideas from past and present artists, and by increasingly,
working from my imagination. I work on my sketchbooks daily, and it’s in these sketches and notes that I develop and work out my ideas for paintings; along
with the visual research material I have collected together.  The paintings in this exhibition represents my work over the past twelve months.   I have called this
collection Chinoiserie, which is a loose term to describe the art and artefacts that emerged out of western culture as a direct result from eastern oriental
influences. This assimilation of cultures first evolved around 300 years ago, when the west developed important trading links with China and Japan.  I have
always been fascinated by Japanese art, after seeing The Great Japan Exhibition in 1981 held at The Royal Academy in London. I naturally identify with
traditional Japanese art and it’s use of expressive colour and more an intuitive use of spatial perspective.  For me it’s the quintessential two-dimensional
qualities, allowing the decorative and pictorial elements to sit more harmoniously within the picture space, that really interest me.   As a painter I am
continually trying to develop my own personal visual language, in order to express myself fully. I am primarily painting for myself, as I need to express myself
visually and paint what I want to paint, I never paint for a market in mind, however, although the process of painting is essentially a very private pursuit, the end
product is then freed from the artists control and is put out there for people to hopefully enjoy.

I try to produce uplifting harmonious and visually exciting paintings, for me it's like having an enhance button, I want to tune up colour, and capture a good feel
factor, I suppose is about enhancing life, I think I am an eternal optimist, mainly because I am so aware of how life can so easily be the opposite, and how
with a different mind set everything could be seen as dull and grey, and depressing. I need to dwell on the positive things in life, and my paintings help me do
this, if people get this by looking and knowing my paintings then I feel I have doubly succeeded.

Cerulean Dreams, Barbara Stanley Gallery,  London. February 2008

The title of this collection of recent paintings ‘Cerulean Dreams’ helps to conjure up, simply in words, what I am setting out to achieve in my work.  I want to
create living, tactile paintings, that maximise the power of colour and bring out the full physical qualities of the paint itself.  The subject matter (being the
starting point and framework for my paintings) needs to have as much freedom and opportunity for experimentation as possible. I have used conventional ‘in
the moment’ perceived scenes as well as scenes from the subconscious i.e. dreams and thoughts, all in the one composition.  This keeps me challenged
as a painter and continually allows me to develop my personal language of paint, as well as keeping  the paintings vital and charged with the energy of life.

‘I am fully aware that a painter’s best spokesman is his work’*

My subject matter is, as always, inspired from the people, places, objects, and animals, around me. Inspiration for a painting may come from, for example,
looking at an exhibition of Dutch Interiors or a bowl of fruit or vase of flowers, or even from a desire to recreate an atmosphere or sense of place taken from the
store of visual memory from my past.  I then develop this source idea from its original preliminary sketch or painting study, into a more detailed composition.  If
I feel further inspired I will expand and develop this into a painting that contains figures, still life and landscape.

I currently use a palette knife to paint with, as I find this helps to bring out the full potential of the oil paint in terms of luminosity, texture and intensity of colour.  
Also, by its sheer unwieldiness, the palette knife prevents me from becoming too literal with my painting language and becoming too absorbed with irrelevant
details.  This enables me to concentrate on the essential qualities of what I am painting.

My personal aim is to develop a language of paint in which I can communicate and express myself fully; an alternative world of colour and form, where there is
harmony, vitality, stability, timelessness, hope freedom, humour and a promise of more to come.’

    *Notes of a painter, Henri Matisse, 1908.

Persephone  Exhibition, The Bad Art Gallery, Dublin. April, 2010.


In this exhibition Persephone, I have found my source of inspiration from Greek mythology.  It is the story of Persephone’s abduction from her mother Demeter,
the earth goddess, by Hades, king of the underworld.  Demeter in her grief forbids the earth to produce, and in the depths of her despair causes nothing to
grow.  When Demeter and her daughter are finally united, the earth flourishes with renewed vegetation and colour.  But before Persephone is released Hades
tricks her into eating four pomegranate seeds, which forces her to return to the underworld as his queen for a season each year, when once again the earth
becomes a barren realm. This is an origin story to explain the seasons.

Something about this ancient story intrigued and inspired me and I have interpreted it in my own way, picking out the visual and playful elements.  I have tried
to impart a seductive, wintry quality to my still lives and interiors, using warm siennas and umbers and thick white, creams and neutral layers of impasto oil
paint applied with a palette knife. In some of my figurative paintings, I am trying to evoke that dilemma of being physically in one place but mentally in another.
In this case, being locked in the cosy depths of winter, where the evenings draw in early and life becomes internalised,  yet dreaming and yearning for the
summer, where time is stretched out in seemingly endless hours of daylight.

In this exhibition I have attempted to expand my painting language further by incorporating the male form into my compositions for the first time.  However, for
me the subject matter is the starting point to a painting, not the end.  So I try to give the figure, whether male or female, the same treatment as I would a vase of
flowers.  I want the figure to just exist and sit right in the painting, and not to story tell and distract.  My overall objective is to produce well balanced paintings,
where the beautiful properties of the colour and the texture of paint predominates the picture plane.  I see my job as a facilitator to this end and by using
sympathetic subject matter and by using the compositional elements and devices that I have built up and developed over the years, I attempt to reach the paint’
s maximum potential.