Castelnau Montratier Painting

I have lived most of my life in London and painted for over thirty years. The majority of my work is inspired by landscape. I began painting in the late 1970s in Suffolk where I lived then and I knew the countryside well from family holidays. I have always had a strong connection to this beautiful place; the sea, river estuaries, marshes and rolling countryside. I am always excited by visiting somewhere new, perhaps travelling abroad, exploring my surroundings; discovering a view, a certain quality, its beauty, feeling a closeness to nature and capturing its infinite complexities. I make drawings, often piecing together snippets of information that I want to remember: colours, textures, movement, close-up details and distant horizons. The paintings become a collection of memories, echoes of things overheard, segments of journeys. My work expresses my relationship to the landscape, a culmination of many remembered and hidden elements, merged together embodying a sense of place. Although there is a certain element of control I want there to be spontaneity in my work too. I love paint and I like using strong colour. A lot of my smaller work is done in situ while larger pieces are worked up from sketches, studies or photographs in my studio. I work with oils, acrylics and watercolours.