Full Artist’s Statement on Current Studio Work

Figurative art;

In the past I have created series of paintings dealing with Japanese advertisements of the 1920’s, Silver Screen film stills and Fashion photography of the 1960’s.

Over the last 20+ years my work has evolved with the use of contemporary images which I have used to forward ideas. I am very interested in portraying figures in a contemporary manner; I want my work to be for ‘now’ and not look nostalgic. My paintings have been compared to many different art genres, from Realist to Pop Art, Fashion Illustration and even Art Deco.

I have always produced strong imagery working from a Fine Art background and I am interested in the technicality of painting. For my figurative work I now choose to use current media imagery and fashion photography as a starting point which is inspired by interests in 1^st wave Pop Art from the 1950’s and 1960’s. I feel that my work represents this theme in Pop Art Which I use in a contemporary context.

Regarding my figurative work I am constantly collecting images from current print magazines to use for preliminary work, whether I am working on an on-going series of paintings or not. I choose an image which to me is solely strong in form, this is most important for me to produce a strong painting. I am using images which the media choose to represent current times and my choices then represents an interest in strength of imagery, not necessarily the subject matter.

Fifteen years ago, it was ever few years when I would carefully select and group images together to start working on preliminary drawings. I now do this every two years so that the images are more relevant to my work to represent what is current. I work with groups of drawings for months at a time to manipulate the image, drawing and tracing, and then continue to paint.

The three most important aspects to my paintings are line work, using primary and secondary lines, colour, the mixing of paint, and composition, using formal or informal compositions. I predominantly work in series of paintings. The numbers of paintings to a series can be anywhere from three to twenty. When I am working on a series, this is when I decide how many paintings will be made. A theme will run through each series without the paintings necessarily looking like they are in a series together. For the series to be completed there needs to be a resolve of an idea or ideas.

 Although the initial series of drawings may reach up to one hundred drawings, I keep looking at the series of drawings during painting each piece and only choose what I think are the strongest images to turn into a painting.

 Mixing paint is very important to the progress of each artwork. I mix my paints in tubs which I have used for many years, these contain left over paint from one artwork to the next, I never use paint straight from a tube. Even the white paint I used contain red, yellow, or brown in its mix.

 Although my paintings are more commonly compared to Pop Art because of my use of a black ‘comic book’ line, it is in fact a style inspired by the drawings of Picasso and Matisse, whose use of strong line work firstly captured my attention in the late 1990’s.

From my experiences from living in Dublin, a brief stay in New York City and now being based in London, it has given me the opportunity to find out what mediums and themes I am most passionate about. I have found that using acrylic {which is quick drying} on canvas, allows me to achieve my individual colour pallet. And over recent years I have also experimented on paper using watercolours, oils, gouache paint and experimented with small scale colleges on paper and canvas.

 I am very interested in minimalism, abstraction, strength from line work and deconstructing formal composition. As I work on each image, I minimise details and line. Throughout my career scale has become a vital part of my practice. Over the past ten years I have consistently progressed my figurative paintings with the use of larger canvases. Within this period, I have gone from painting on canvas of one meter wide to using rolls of ten-meter-long canvas. This has resulted in paintings which consume the space they are in and force a visual impact on the viewer.

Abstract art;

 Although my studio practice mainly revolves work on canvas I also am interested in using other art material to develop ideas. In 2002 I made a photography series of floral images which became a base for my abstract paintings. In 2016 the body of work progressed from singular 2-dimensional paintings into 3-dimensional paintings with the use of plaster forms.

 ‘Linear Abstraction’ 1.0 and 2.0 were the first combined abstract pieces exploring abstract ideas within my paintings. Each piece is a combined artwork consisting of an acrylic painting on board and a plaster form also painted in acrylic.

The body of work started with a photograph being minimally drawn, taking away the 3-dimensional aspect of photography and blown up to size on the board or canvas. A section of this painting is then taken and worked into a 3-dimensional hollow case plaster form. Both pieces are then painted in the same colours, making the artwork as one whole piece, changing the viewers’ attention to the space in which they stand not just focusing on the walls of their environment.

The work questions the ideas of what can be considered a painting? How abstract painting is evolving within the art world?

 In 2018 the work progressed again, dropping any 2-dimensional aspect of painting in the gallery space. The work became abstract and minimal 3-dimensional paintings which represent the idea of breaking down a painting into its most simplistic form, dropping any 2-dimensional aspect of painting in the gallery space. The project has recently been named the ’50 Year Project’ with the intension to expand on current ideas over the next 30 years. ‘Expansion’, an installation piece, was made November 2019- June 2020. The biggest piece to date, consists of approximately 15 meters of hand sown and painted canvas, hung specifically to use the entire space of the gallery. In July 2020, this painting won an Honorable Mention Award from Art Room Gallery. Additional awards for my abstract paintings include two Special Recognition Awards from Light Space & Time in 2018 and 2022.

 In 2025 my abstract work changed direction due to the change in preliminary photography. I am currently using photographs of water to experiment with. So far, I have used my own studio made oil paint on small scale hand-made paper and studio made plaster tiles. I have also completed one oil painting on canvas which represents a use of oil paint mediums for different textures. For the body of work I am particularly interested in experimenting with making my own paints and using different surfaces. This new work was exhibited in the Museum of Lecce Italy in July 2026.

Print work;

 In 2018 I wanted to make completely black and completely white pieces of art but not using paint. I had an idea to make pieces of art in which a viewer would need to see the work in person, as it would be difficult to photograph. I took my original drawings which I base my abstract paintings on and used these images for woodblock printing. I printed black ink on black paper and working with white ink on white paper too. The images are difficult to view and photograph.

In September 2020 I moved this series into collage and expanded to printing on acetate and tracing paper. I want to make images consisting of layers of images which on their own and combined are abstract.

Photography;

 My photography work started in 2018. I began to grow specific plants to photograph with the use of an original 1930’s SoHo camera. Again, looking to make black images and not to have the plants themselves as the focal point in the image. I want the negative space or blackness of each image to be the focus of the work. Capturing this in a photograph can be done from photographing in full sun between June and September each year. I also worked with a 1980’s Polaroid camera, again working in full sun. Each photograph is not based on taking a 'perfect' photograph but this time capturing colour and dark negative space together.

 - I have an interest in contemporary artists such as Frank Stella, Diana Al-Hadid, Tala Madani, Sara Twomey, Michael Heizer, Allen Jones. I have a strong interest in 19^th and 20^th century Scandinavian art and visit different Scandinavian art museums annually to study the work.

Visiting London exhibitions in galleries and museums which deal with contemporary art, fashion design, past art movements and cultural history is very important to the production of my work. I find that it allows me to focus on the importance of working with different themes, and always to push the boundaries of my comfort zone.