Statement

Mostly, I like to depict people. Whatever the subject matter though – my interest is to develop a portrait.

When painting people or animals, there is a point when I get a strong sense of the individual before me. Having a person before me for life sitting is both a pressurized and intimate situation, where there is verbal and non-verbal dialogue. The effect of time can be a reflective experience for the sitter and an absorbing time for me the painter, when I try not to think too much, just react and allow intuition and spontaneity to dominate.

I also work from selected photographs. Working from a photograph is less pressurized due to being alone. It becomes generally a more conscious and deliberate process unless I decide to work ‘as if’ the person were present. There are less visual cues by the person not being there. This can either lead to greater experimentation or a simplification of what seems essential.

Both methods of working, or a combination of the two I find stimulating and worthwhile.

Features of my style include expressive mark making, use of line, occasional distortion and non-naturalistic colour. In this way the person depicted is not likely to be an exact physical replica, but will convey something of that person. The views of Henri Matisse (1869-1954) offer validation to this possibility. He wrote that the outcome of a drawing may not always be the same, but how the whole is put together in a felt way will give an accuracy of the person (Matisse, 1947).

I also have a hope that my images could have a universal interest and that is even if the person depicted is not known to the viewer, the humanity conveyed could hold a resonance which engages.

Reference
Matisse, H. (1947) Exactitude is not Truth, cited in Chipp, H. B. (1968) Theories of Modern Art. A Source Book by Artists and Critics. Page 138. Los Angeles and London:University of California Press, Berkeley