I was trained as a sculptor, but have always made paintings. The two distinct areas of my practice are a response to my life-long fascination with the inter-relationship between the natural and human made worlds. In particular, the natural world has had a fundamental influence on maritime, aviation and automobile design and manufacture. I do not see my work as abstract, but rather an abstraction of my subject matter. The imagery in my sculpture is often a fusion of the manufactured and organic worlds. I personally don’t see a contradiction in responding positively to both sources, but appreciate how some would recognise the potential for the manufacturing industries, ultimately destroying the natural world. In my current painting, I have focused on my own experience of aerial views from aeroplanes, where I have responded to the natural and human made features of the landscape. This is perhaps a form of mapping, but emotional and subjective? This is not measuring or recording in a conventional sense. Superficially, my sculpture and paintings may appear quite separate, but in fact, are very similar and reflect parallel attitudes to making.

The process for creating my sculptures is more reflective, process driven and inevitably slower. I am bound to a large extent by the rules of manufacturing sculpture. Bronze casting, in particular, largely requires a sequential, ‘non negotiable’ approach. Ideas of multiples, reproduction and modes of manufacture suffuse the work, reflecting my love of engineering.

In contrast, my paintings, although still using conventional methodologies, allow me considerable speed and an almost exclusively intuitive approach in the early stages. Subsequently, there is an unconscious, almost dreamlike, psychological quality in some of the painting imagery. The sculptures, however, come from a different place; more formal, self conscious and guarded with high production values camouflaging emotions. My sculpture presents high craft skills and seductive aesthetically pleasing materials but under the surface, there are sometimes submerged darker narratives. Whereas, in my paintings, such emotional content is far more evident in its raw unfiltered state.

My sculptures occupy real space, and live in the ‘real world’ whereas my paintings with a greater sense of illusionary space, and explorations of colour, inhabit a world of imagined places. Therefore, I see my dual practice as just two sides of the same coin.
 
All the sculptures are in bronze or currently being cast into bronze. All the paintings are oil paint on board or canvas. The art works covers a period from 2015 - 2021.