I've been painting for fifty years or so and, apart from a few years break here and there, the work has often taken on different guises. Like all painters, I try to let the work evolve in terms of subject matter and style. I've never tried to force a particular feel to the paintings but let the process of painting determine the outcomes. I prefer to work in a series. The subject matter can then determine my response to it and thereby become an honest interpretation.

ON LANDSCAPE:
David Hockney once said something along the lines of of "There's nothing wrong with painting landscape, it's just that most of it these days is boring." I can understand that sentiment, but any visit to any decent gallery (commercial or otherwise) will reveal a whole array of landscapes that are far from boring. There has long been a negative critical critique associated with landscape painting. There are arguments for this but I feel if the contemporary critical view of landscape is negative, that is even more reason to engage with it. I have long suspected that this negativity is reserved for those of us outside the clique of London based art colleges. Products of those establishments are assumed (by critics) to 'know what they're doing.' 

ON PROCESS:
It's often said that galleries are not interested in any work that does not visually identify the artist without looking for a signature. I suppose it's like hearing a singer on the radio - some are simply identifiable without even hearing their name. But this has always been a problem for me. I guess my series paintings can be pigeon-holed like this but generally speaking, I want to continue to grow as a painter. I want to keep exploring the media and not be tied down to commercial expectations. I've been there and done that - even got the T-shirt. If a painting works, it works! Simple! How any painter gets there should be celebrated for what it is - not what it should be.


UNDERGRAD AND POSTGRAD STUDY:
After a fourteen year career as a police traffic and firearms officer, an accident on duty left me with a fractured spine and damaged discs in my neck. I was left without a job and the prospect of living off incapacity benefit for the rest of my life, quite frankly, terrified me. When I was able, I managed to get a place on the BA(Hons) Painting and Drawing course at what was then Swansea Institute (now Trinity St David). This was all thanks to Dr Robert Newell who gave me the chance to study there with him. After a four-year part-time course I managed to achieve a first-class degree and then wondered what I could do with this qualification. At the time, the Welsh Assembly Government had a £6K bursary for studying to be a lecturer at Further Education. I thought, what the hell? Give it a go. So I did. That was over twenty years ago and I have been at the college where I did my teaching practice ever since. For the most part, I've loved teaching, but things are changing for the worse. Admin and money now take precedence over a good rounded education and that's something I'm no longer comfortable with. This is not a criticism om my employers, just something that has infected education at all levels above the compulsory ages. But I digress. Back in 2007 I gained a Master's degree in Fine Art. My dissertation was based upon the power of the single mark - the foundation, the start, the first step on that hundred mile walk. My practical work explored this too, with a series of works celebrating the mark. I distilled landscape to as few marks as I could get away with to still represent the connection with the space. It was great fun and something that has stuck with me through the years. Economy of effort. I kept telling myself to think what mark would work and then lay it down and leave it alone. Although I often expand on this now, the principle remains the same. 

Although recent work has explored the connections with paint and realism, the oil sketches created for the paintings tend to have a life of their own. The aim is to capture a sense of the place quickly. These sketches carry just enough information to remind me of the feelings of the place without referring to photographs.