Artist Statement

I am a storyteller, weaving tapestries from my own personal experience or the way I wish the world to be. I allow myself any possibility or absurdity to stretch those most human of abilities; imagination and wit -and alloy them with accomplished technique to make them real. I paint to communicate, to include, subvert, opine and to please myself.

I refuse to be bound by style and I constantly refine and change technique and approach. Each painting is a challenge, and although it starts as an idea sketched out on a drawing pad, will inevitably mutate as it proceeds until intuition tells me that it’s done. The act of painting itself sparks off new ideas and improvements and will sometimes cause me to take off at a tangent to the original composition. I paint mostly in oils because of its vibrancy and texture but also because of the way oils force me into a slower more contemplative and expressive way of working; I’m a painter of lively and deep imagination and oils help me to slow the process of portrayal. Each painting can take from a couple of weeks, to many months to complete.

The themes I explore are usually ones that move me in some way -that make me marvel or laugh out loud, or commemorate some heroic family deed from the awed viewpoint of my childhood. Much of my work is a self-examination of my mongrel identity -of being raised in London by a strong but easy-going Wexford mother and a dogmatic, Irish-speaking, father from Belfast who saw his children as completely Irish. Irish traditional dance music which my father played and which I also play as a musician provides much inspiration, with its ancient, stirring melodies and often earthy and strangely random titles. Above all, all my work is viewed through the filter of my humour, sense of the ridiculous and disdain for pompousness.