I was once told that my artwork was to immature for the market, and this troubled me as to what they really meant. At first I thought that this meant I was painting like a child, though coming from a professional of the art world, I knew that this could not be so. I pondered the question of what immaturity the art dealer was talking about.

My conclusion is that I had just not been painting well enough for long enough. As hard as that might be to swallow, it is the truth, or can I be bold enough now to say that was the truth.

There has been great advancement in my commitment to painting in the last few years and I think my late 2007 and recent 2008 work explains this in a seemingly mature manner, at least compared to that of my earlier painting, which were responsible for developing my curiosity to find new ways of expressing the subject matter that I had been investigating over the last ten years with my bodily figurative work.

When we find ourselves in an environment where the realisation of aloneness is internalised, there can be various responses. Vulnerability, Fear, Adrenaline, but paradoxically, these feelings can also be interpreted as freedom, liberation, excitement. They can be either comforting or discomforting, this to me is our individuality.

I love the vibrant qualities that oil paint possesses and the depth of its luster. The colours I choose and texture of my mark making reveal the essence of my emotion. The contrast between dark and light I comprehend as opposing forces, duality, and extremities. When subtly toning and shading, I often dispense with conventional tools and use my fingers, knuckles, or even my whole hand. This direct physical contact with the paint on canvas is almost an essential part of my process. A resultant of my process is my work is in limbo somewhere between representation and abstraction, somewhat like the mind!!! My bodily work provided a vehicle for motion, giving an additional dimension to internal thoughts, in a similar fashion to the way conventional body language communicates. The surroundings of the forms became an enveloping situation, related to either an inner or outer world. I have been expressing in bodily figurative form, imagery in relation to emotional constraints of defining environments. I have been challenging the traditional concept of figurative painting and portraying ‘the person’ not as a beautiful or ugly object, but a complex bundle of emotional states. The focus of my work is moving away from the bodily figure. I am investigating alternatives to this figuration to convey similar concepts which I explored in my previous work. Woodland landscape objects are providing me with new insight, stimulation, and a path of continuation in the development of my portfolio. "If everyone loved working for someone else there would be no artists"


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