I am an artist and author. I love looking for the stories in life and in the world around me, and have spent most of my life telling stories through words and with paint. My novels and short fiction have been published mainly in the United Kingdom by PaperBooks and Legend Press, and I established my own imprint a couple of years back to publish and distribute in Australia and globally. I enjoyed designing the books and their covers so much that it made me decide to spend more time drawing and painting than I had before. It was a decision I'm delighted I made because I find painting so absorbing and rewarding. Making a canvas or board spring to life with light and colour, shadows and highlights, is irresistible!
Having emigrated to Australia over 30 years ago, my first impressions were of the scale of the landscape and sky, the depth of the horizon, the brightness of the light, the vividness of colours and sharpness of contrast, but familiarity has in no way dulled this for me. On the contrary, painting helps me continue to learn to see these qualities in every day life; aspects of which I, in turn, try to capture in my work.
I'm currently working on a series of paintings that focus on what, for me, are quintessentially Australian buildings, although, again, it's the interplay of colours and form, and the suggestiveness of shadows that really captures my attention. Many of the buildings are quite ordinary in themselves - the sort of places a person might walk past every day without really noticing - but hopefully my paintings may help people see their urban landscape afresh, through a different lens. These compositions rarely feature people, but suggest there are stories behind them. They are imbued with a moment of stillness, captured in time - almost the mood of a siesta - when the colours resonate against a strong, low sun, and the shadows are long.