B) My Art and Philosophy



Behind the work: 

I paint. I draw. I imagine. I take the ordinary things, people/ animals, places and moments in time that spark my imagination, and turn them into what I enjoy. I hope you enjoy them too. When I can't paint I draw. When I can't draw, I imagine... and the cycle continues. 


The stuff of life: I use various media - mainly paint or pen - to depict the importance, simplicity, the beauty - the essence - of ordinary, everyday subjects. Often I use metaphor to express things like the childlike, playful, satirical or darker sides of my subjects. I use line, shape, colour, texture and tone to tell a story, to give voice to the subject, and often, to simply express the material quality of things. 

To draw, paint and make is a creative and personal thing, the pursuit of which is not to be dictated to or influenced by excuses, distractions, inhibitions, fears, others' negativity or expectaions. To be true to your artform is to be true to yourself and therefore to others.

Every seemingly ordinary thing needs a space or a place in which to belong; to feel at home in its own right, to be, and be allowed to be, not as a reflection of human existence, but of itself.Feeling is just another way of knowing - understanding ones place in the world. (See writings on John Clare).

© The images on this website may not be used or reproduced in any form without permission of the artist.

Some Literary References....


Adorno, Theodore, 1997, Aesthetics Theory Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
(Hegel in Adorno p.36)

Barrell, John, 1972, The Idea of Landscape and the Sense of Place 1730-184O:An approach to the poetry of John Clare, Cambridge University Press, London

Bate, Jonathan, 1991, Romantic Ecology, Routledge, London

Bate, Jonathan, 1991, Romantic Ecology, Routledge, London

Cafaro, Philip, Thoreau’s Living Ethics: Walden and the pursuit of Virtue, University of Georgia Press, Athens and London

Clark, Stephen, 1995, 1994…

Eagelton, How to Read a Poem, Blackwell, MA, Oxford, Carlton

Mabey, Richard, 2006, Nature Cure, Pimlico Random House, London

McKusick, James, 1991/1992, ‘A Language that is Evergreen: The ecological vision of John Clare’,University of Toronto Quarterly61 (2), p.226-249

Midgley, Mary, 2005, The Essential Mary Midgley, Routledge, London

Robinson, David, Natural Life: Thoreau’s Worldly Transcendentalism, Cornell University Press, London


Ryan, Thomas, 2011, Animals and Social Work: A Moral Introduction,  Palgrave Macmillan                         (Animal Ethics Series)

Two Small Birds - August2019

~ Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and excitin...

Painting - landscapes, people, places