Toro Painting

I work in the still life painting tradition from brief, often precarious, arrangements of small, neutral or insignificant subject matter. I use observation, intuition, relationship, scale and metaphor to create a sense of clarity and space and give form to my sensibility. I regard form as concentrated space, process and phenomena and strive to create visual meditations that are layered, poetic and stop time. I draw on my interests outside art for inspiration - mainly music, yoga, meditation and Eastern thought, mainly Tao and Zen. I am particularly drawn to the increasing connections between Buddhist related thought and aspects of contemporary science, particularly physics and neuropsychology. I have also been very influenced by Iain McGilchrist's groundbreaking book "The Master and his Emissary", a Rosetta stone that connects and explains the two brain hemispheres, "the two cultures" and the philosophies of East and West. It reveals much of arts response to 20th/21st century Western society to be in fact, like its subject, Cartesian and dualistic. Please look at my blog for more written thoughts and observations. My work can be viewed by year via the Collections/view all/ tab