About me
I am an artist based in the South East of England. I make abstract paintings in which I investigate colour relationships through the use of repeated painted patterns. I am particularly interested in the way in which abstract patterns can be suggestive of possible perceptual experience.
Although my art is abstract, it has grown out of the practice of drawing and painting landscapes. After completing a degree in fine art, I spent my time painting coastal landscapes around East Sussex. In this work, I started to simplify the images to a point in which I became solely focused upon the patterns of shape and colour within a picture.
I have arrived at a practice of painting in which the image is built up through a process of layering blocks of colour. I take simple shapes, such as lines, stripes or waves. I then repeat these shapes across the canvas and build up a network of varied patterns.
I tend to apply paint to the canvas in uniform, solid areas of opaque colour. In this way, I can focus exclusively on the interactions between hues of colour. The colours which I choose are derived from analogous and complimentary colour relations which are found on the artists colour wheel. I organise these colours within a palette of related hues which is arranged as a stepped sequence of colours. I then take these colour sequencies and overlay and interlace them.
The overall effect of this process is the creation of a picture plane of varying colour patterns. These patterns are constructed in a manner in which they aim to produce the impression of an invented visual scene. It is intended that this scene should look like a view onto a possible alternate world.
My paintings are abstract, so any representation of a scene is not direct but only made through suggestion. This suggestion is created through perceived similarities between the painted lines and forms which can be found in nature. It is intended that the wavy lines give the impression of natural features such as ripples on water or fields of swaying grass.
I am fascinated by the way in which abstract patterns can suggest qualities which are usually associated with representational images. In particular, the way in which colour patterns can give the impression of spatial qualities such as volume and depth. This adds to the possibility of triggering an association between an abstract pattern and forms which are found in nature.
I use bright and bold colours in my paintings. When these are juxtaposed on a canvas they stimulate a viewers gaze to jump between them and skip around the canvas. This sets up a visual rhythm which induces a sense of pictorial movement. Again, this adds to a viewer’s intimation of a space which is alive and moving.
It is my overall aim to create paintings that represent an alternate space which is vivid, vibrant and alive. A space in which vibrant colours dance and bounce off each other. A space in which these colours dance and weave together to create living structures. This is a space where the painting is a visual field in which colour and form is a network of woven light.