I graduated from Lancaster University in 1992 with a degree in Visual art and London University in 1994 with a Graduate Diploma in art education. In 2002 I moved to Melbourne and joined The Beaumaris Art Group to continue my art practice in painting and teaching. In 2016 I joined Le studio in Mordialloc and have been painting and teaching from my studio here ever since. As well as exhibiting in various galleries, I have been selling my work nationally and internationally.
I am very interested in people and I love loving in a big city, so a lot of my work includes people. My work is mostly figurative, usually acrylic on canvas, and mainly set in urban landscapes. Most of my work begins with a sketch or photograph taken from life, a street scene in Melbourne, a train on a Japanese subway or an alleyway on a walk with my dog. I am constantly looking at people, buildings and trying to grab something ordinary or extra-ordinary that intrigues me. I let these images sit in my unconscious for a while to allow time to think about how I want paint that image, when I am ready to paint that image and how I would like it to โfeelโ. Light, colour and perspective are very important in my work, I subconsciously create windows and employ the use of one vanishing point to entice the viewer into the painting. My paintings are a merge of the narrative, figurative and imagination. While life goes on, I will never run out of subject matter to paint. The challenge is to paint a โbetterโ painting every single time.
