the Spree n°5 Painting

Born 1966 in London as the youngest of 3 boys. From very young age he had a particular strong interest in water and fish that he carried all the way through his youth and young adulthood. In 1998 he gave up a successful career as a landscape gardener, to start professional painting. After a short while, he was exhibited in London at St. Peters Center and at Whitechapel Library with paintings of fish. This early success gave him the motiviation and confidence to deepen his life's focus into painting. So in 2000 he moved to the outstanding natural beauty of Galway, Ireland to paint 8 to 16 hours a day. Living in an artist community gave him inspiration and helped to develop his personal style. After four years of intense studying, and painting he moved to Berlin, to show his art to a wider audience and to make a living with his art. Styles: Water Oilpaintings, Collage Themes: Water, fish, Berlin, portraits, nature abstracts Influences: Matisse, Van Gogh, Ingres, Rubens, William Blake, Nature "Until the age of 24 I hadn't thought too much about painting, yet while studying landscape design, I followed Watercolour painting lessons on a famous British TV-Show (sorry the name of which I've forgotten). The buzz I received after completing my first painting, was the moment that made it easy for me to decide to become a painter. The action of learning to paint motivated me to study intensly the techniques of painters I admired like Van Gogh, Ingres, Rubens and William Blake. The recession in england in the early 90's, and the contiueing struggle to make a decent living for many people made me start to explore the value of the present moment. I found this mirrored in the things we know as never standing still like fire and water. Or as the fish always moving or drifting, but never standing still."