Landscapes

This genre has always appealed to me and recurs in my work. Each scene represents a place where I have been that evoked strong feelings. Some are made ‘en plein air’, on site, or worked up in the studio from photos, memories, watercolours and sketches. I often explore an area or idea in multiples or series

‘La Vienne, can you meet me halfway’

This series of 7 oil paintings will be on show and for sale at the forthcoming Battersea Affordable Art Fair from 15th-19th October. It was inspired by crossing the Vienne river, both by car, foot and canoe. It struck me that looking slowly at each section of the river from one bank to the next was another kind of crossing.

I loved both the realism and abstraction of the different elements, textures and colours. It is also a nod to David Hockney’s use of multiple viewpoints to document time and celebrate the art of looking.

230 cm x 42cm including frames £3325

‘Teste de Buch’

This triptych was selected for the 2024 Art Gemini Prize exhibition and shown at the Lighthouse Gallery on London’s city Island.

It documents my hottest summer on record spent working in my studio in France. On the 12th July 2022 a major fire broke out in the pine forests of La Teste-de-Buch just behind the beautiful Arcachon basin where I had visited and camped on many occasions. As the fires raged, more that 16,000 people had to be evacuated. I woke on the morning of the 15th July to embers floating in our village that lies over 200km north east of the forest. Remembering painter Maggie Hambling describing how she only enjoyed painting the impossible, I thought that a forest fire would be a worthy challenge. Over the next month I set about creating this triptych.

240cm x 70cm oil on canvas

£2355

‘To and Fro, Turn up the Radio’

These 2 sets of linked paintings will also be available to purchase at the AAF in October. They depict some of London’s newest skyscrapers. They are painted from observation and partly from my mind’s eye as I head west at early morning rush-hour then east home again in the evening. My route takes me along the A40 looking left to the appropriately named Manet Gardens and Duchamp Court buildings and then heading east, I can’t miss the new Twin Towers apartments looming large at North Acton. Both these views document my journeys through urban cities and my relationship with the built environment. The nine eleven tragedy in New York was certainly in the back of my mind as something that I wanted to both acknowledge as a deeply troubling memory and overcome, by painting all that I love about the cities beating rhythms and soul. Looking at them again, I see 1930’s American art influences such as Georgia O’Keefe’s New York canvases and Stuart Davis’s poster style urban cubism.

‘To and fro’ 192cm x 42cm oil on canvas £2850

‘Turn up the radio’ 192cm x 42cm £2850