About me

I suppose that art and a passion to express is in my blood.A genesis that was then vitalised by growing up in Bohemian , 60's Camden, the Roundhouse, sledges on Primrose Hill and kites on Hampstead Heath.

I really immersed myself with making art, ten or fifteen years ago, there was a lot going on in my life and indeed in the world, as now.It was as a port in a storm, so to speak,during some particularly difficult times personally and globally.

My time is divided between being out in the landscape and back at my small studio. I value the importance of being out walking and sketching along the rivers and hills in South Devon throughout the year. A rendezvous with each of the Seasons as they come and go.I am sometimes wrapped up or conversely with a parasol.There are brief encounters with the passing, inquisitive walkers. The river like time continues to flow and is both a physical and metaphysical element in my work, flowing as she does from the moor to the sea.
The studio is where I hold a variety of materials some natural, some unusual with which to express further my dialogue with the landscape.The shelves are lined with pots and boxes of things, some labelled some not.
It is also back at the studio where I have been exploring the the essence of being myself.Making sketches in different ways or with materials that perhaps define me;tea, spirulina and a plethora of lotions and prescribed potions.I feel that to make a sketch of someone using materials and tools that perhaps outline the soul of who that person has become.
In the field and in the studio I try to keep the freedom to make marks and loose gestural responses to a subject,it is integral to my work.

Working with a range of materials I develop surfaces through sensory expressions, that evolve into landscapes.
These landscapes are documented through sketches on site with charcoal, liquid graphite and pencil. I also make minor interventions with natural materials at the site to get in touch with the environment that I am working with. Returning to the studio I begin working on Fabriano paper using materials gathered from the landscape including feathers, clay, mud and leaves, adding studio materials and pigments including Bideford Black, Shellac and Gesso leading me to to build an expression of my experience in the landscape.

Self-portraits begin with a process of tactile observation of my own face, translating that onto paper to see what emerges from my fingertips. I turn in profile to the paper, to start exploring my head, holding the charcoal quite loosely to make marks on the paper scanning the head through intuitive processes as opposed to observational study. I develop a series of studies that are laid horizontally onto a panoramic sequence of paper. The images are then examined in detail to draw out a pattern in the chaos; some recognition of human forms such as a brow or lip. These develop into a series of drawings that are self-portraits that become aspects of myself.