Northern lights Painting

I was born in North London and grew up in in the Surrey Hills. As a child I was always drawing, painting and making things. After I left school at 17 I worked for two years for an interior design business before enrolling at West Surrey College of Art and Design (now UCA, University for the Creative Arts), where I did my foundation year. It was a very exciting time, with conceptual art taking off and so many different influences, including music. After West Surrey I studied for a BA in Fine Art at Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, where my tutors included Adrian Heath (the great British painter and friend of Terry Frost) and Peter Kinley. After leaving Corsham I moved to London and started to paint full-time. I had several exhibitions, including a solo show at the Crest Gallery and a group show of New British Art at the London Hippodrome. I also started to study graphic design and typography and, although I continued to paint I found my design and typographic skills increasingly in demand, especially for creating high-concept photographic publications. Then in 2009 I lost my older brother to a brain tumour, and I found myself taking a long, hard look at what I was doing, working to deadline all the time and rarely finding the time for my painting. I asked myself if this was what I really wanted to do. And the answer was No. I decided to have a complete change and in 2011 and moved to west Cornwall, near St Ives. I took on a studio and threw myself into painting. Working full-time as an artist and being in the Cornish landscape has had a huge impact on the development of my work. I began to show my work regularly with the Penwith Gallery in St Ives and take part in Cornwall Open Studios. I’ve also had two solo shows in Penzance, and have a group show coming up in St Ives in 2019. (With thanks to Alex Wade and Cornwall Today magazine for the interview which I used as the basis for this biography.)