Afterwards I taught Art in Birmingham for six years until I left for Spain, where for 20 years I was in charge of the Joan Miro Centro de Arte and the Baleares International School. In 1999 I moved to the USA and my new millennium dawned in New York. I currently split my time between the Catskill Mountains of New York and the Gulf Coast of Florida.
In recent years I have, I suppose, become a known prize winning artist. I have won a number of painting awards and several “best of shows” throughout the USA. I exhibit in prestigious galleries from Boston to Miami, Toronto
to Whistler. Of the many prizes I have won in recent years I regard most fondly the Washington Square Painting Prize. This is New York Cities oldest art show and
to follow in the footsteps of the many notable artists
that have won this prize before me was, indeed,
a cherished honour.
I have long been an “America fanatic” and I have always wanted to live in the USA. I have travelled to almost every state and am still enormously impressed by the sheer scale of the landscape and it’s enormous diversity. The American landscape is inspirational and the country’s paraphernalia such as old cars, old bars, old guitars and even the occasional naked arse have found there way onto my canvases. However my desire for the direction of my paintings have always been more academic. I sought a subject that in itself seemed to have little value, hoping that the values I imparted in the painting alone would form the point of attack on the senses of which I believe all great art comprises. This attack is visceral and totally lacking in sophistication. I often think of it in musical terms; rhythm, texture, colouration and tonal dynamics.
When I bought my house in the Catskills I found in the root cellar, case after case of pristine mason jars.
I bought a few up into the kitchen and after studying them over breakfast for some days I began to see that this was a quite remarkable subject.
In painting glass one is attempting to render a surface that is composed entirely of either refracted of reflected light. The objects are rarely painted as an independent object. The raised lettering on the jars and bottles I paint have, by their prismatic nature, an ability to capture tone and colour from one side of the composition and pull it to the other. The rhythmic nature of this lettering provides a stave onto which the decaying patterns of colour, the tonal crescendos and the reflected counter melodies are written.
Through painting glass I have exposed an endless path of discoveries. I can paint photorealist images but also be more expressionistic whilst achieving what I believe to be powerful and engaging work of art.
From Palette to Picture
I work from my own photographs and consequently now have a large collection of glass. I even travel with a small collection and have recently photographed them on a Mississippi river bridge and way up in the Rockies at the point of the North American Continental Divide.
More normally the photos in preparation for a piece
are taken in some rather strange ad hoc studios on in my kitchen or porch. I use mostly mono-directional natural light. More often than not I am looking directly into the light source and frequently obscure that light source in some part of the composition, whist letting the objects appear both against the light and the dark. This causes the raised lettering in the bottles to enjoy some strange tonal exchanges.
Contact us about this artist 