Ghost carp Print

Along with portraits and landscapes, I am more often than not drawn to painting still life. Although it is perhaps just painting ‘stuff’, I love its humility, and its implied human content - what is perhaps hovering beyond its parameters; a human element notable by its absence. There is a certain poetry to be found in a dripping bath tap and the light carried in the ripples, a fly on the wall, the fleeting expression on a face, a nameless place. It seems to me that these happenings underpin our existence; big events, highs and lows, come and go but the insignificant and fleeting remain and repeat, like a constant hum in the background. The nature of each brushstroke, and the texture of the paint also play an important part in the translation of the seen, into a blurring between the representational and the semi abstract, the patterns which often escape our notice. I work every day searching for an alchemy between paint, subject and moment. When I studied at Chelsea School of Art I was making sculpture, but the intention behind the work was similar. Works from those times include a bicycle abandoned on its side with its back wheel perpetually turning, so the scene of an accident was kept alive for an infinite length of time, a remote controlled leg of lamb, a huge flying saucepan which had come to rest skewered by the sword of a swordfish held upright by a fisherman (both plaster casts). Although my life is a busy one with many commitments - I am also a classical pianist (and I teach the piano and violin) - not being creative in some way every day has never been possible for me. I love every minute!