Sailing Away Painting

I’m originally from a small village in the south west of England. It was clear from a young age I was never going to be a rocket scientist. A mad scientist maybe but not an intellectual one. I grew up spending my free time building strange contraptions in my father’s workshop. Invention and creativity was my one true calling. This is evident in my work now. I love experimenting with mediums and trying new artistic ideas. This is all very well but creating weird and wonderful inventions doesn’t pay the bills in a small market town in the middle of nowhere. I lost my way as a teenager and tried desperately hard to fit in with ‘normal’ society. Holding down a job was something I just could not do. By the second day of a new job I was bored and counting down the hours until I could leave. I tried and tried and failed and failed. It was not a happy time for me. It wasn’t until I exhausted all job prospects in my sleepy little town. And exhausted all hope of trying to fit in that my sister finally convinced me to go to the big City and sign up to Art college. I thrived. That depressed introverted no-hoper teenager finally shone! From day one I was getting good grades! This was totally unfamiliar to me as I bunked off school so much as a child my teachers didn’t even recognise me when I did finally decide to turn up. I was actually one of the top in my class! I actually found somewhere that I fitted in. I got into college as soon as the caretaker opened the door and left only after being thrown out by my tutors at the end of the day. I found my purpose. Ever since then if I haven’t spent the day creating art then I’ve spent the day thinking about art. The drive of creating the most extraordinary art is what inspires me to jump out of bed every day. I studied art at the City of Bath College before going on to study at the University of Wales. I studied hard. When you finally find what you love to do then studying hard is actually studying easy. I slowly but surely built up my art career over many years. Having many local exhibitions around the UK, not selling anything for many years did become rather sole destroying. But I would not give up, I couldn’t. What else was I going to do? What else could I do? This was a good life lesson. If you have a failed exhibition and nobody comes and nobody buys anything then there is only one way it can go…. UP!.