Round 7 Print

I graduated from the University of Ulster with a BA Hons degree in graphic design and worked for over 20 years in London advertising agencies where I received numerous awards. In 2004 I moved to Asia and spent five years as executive creative director of Ogilvy and Mather Vietnam. This gave me the opportunity to visit many countries. I am now in Kuwait, working on a wide range of projects both local and international. I have always painted in the countries in which I have lived and worked. However recent seismic changes within the advertising industry and being personally disenchanted with its reinvention has persuaded me to investigate an alternate path. A career as an artist seems like a natural and hopefully worthwhile progression. I believe in simplicity, a work ethic, and in my own two eyes. If it looks like something that 'could've been knocked up before breakfast' and justified with superfluous bloated logic then forget it. My inspiration comes from travel, people, my senses - a mood, an idea. I use a camera in my work. In Kuwait I heard from various sources that I should never point it directly at a person, I tried it once. Their reaction made me feel like I was pointing a gun, (Sharia law forbids creating a image of anything with a soul, specifically human faces, less detailed full body figures are somehow less offensive.) I started taking pictures of people walking away. Convenient or cowardly - but it gave me an idea - the anonymity of the dish dasha and the juxtaposition of the skyscrapers and cars that scream out to be noticed suggested a polarity and a truth about Kuwait and the Arab world, a changing world inhabited by stalwart traditionalists. I'm taking a new path - I'm curious to see where and how far it goes, one step at a time.