I am a full-time professional artist living and working in the hinterland of the Gold Coast. I am predominantly a landscape painter but I do paint other subjects like still life when the mood takes me and the occasional self portrait because I'm a fairly reliable model.
My landscapes are the result of spending a lot of time in nature, looking, sketching, thinking, photographing and plotting the next painting. When I get back to the studio I scour the imagery, often deconstructing and reconfiguring them to compose works that are an amalgamation of scenes and an accumulation of experiences. This is done both on the computer and the old fashioned way - with pencil and paper.
When I strike upon something that has some kind of spark, I follow it.... work out the ratio and size I want it, make the stretcher frame, stretch and prepare the canvas (or cut and prime the board), make a rough sketch of it in charcoal and then set about it with a lot of oil paint and some palette knives. The painting process totally transforms this thing I'd been working on into something else. Something fluid, with texture, movement, complex colours and colour combinations, nuance, its own shadows, hills and valleys, something with it's own pulse and life. The goal is to create a work fully reminiscent and suggestive of the original subject, as well as being a new thing in it's own right, full of character and mystery.
I would say my works are a synthesis of my visual and emotional experiences, sculpted with a passion for painting and tempered by a keen interest in gardening, wildlife, literature and the natural world.
I've been a professional artist for roughly 23 years and have been a finalist in many prestigious art prizes over that time, including The Tattersalls Landscape Prize, The Brisbane Portrait Prize, The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, The Percival, The Doyles, The Bluethumb Art Prize, Stanthorpe Art Prize, Lethbridge Landscape Prize, The EMSLA and many others. My original paintings and Limited Edition Prints are held in private, public and corporate collections worldwide.
I was also thrilled to be included in the book 'A Painted Landscape - Across Australia From Bush to Coast' in 2018, written by Amber Creswell-Bell and published by Thames & Hudson, a tribute to 50 prominent contemporary Australian Landscape Painters.