Born 1965 (London), schooled Orleans, Twickenham and Marlborough College

1984-88 University of Newcastle upon Tyne

1988-92 lived and worked in Marseilles, associating with French artists

1993 returned to London, setting up studio in Chiswick

1997.. moved to Chertsey near the Artists Studios, where I paint, now full time.

Qualifications and awards

BA Hons (first class) in Fine Art, University of Newcastle upon Tyne

1984 - John Christie Prize for Art

1988 - John Christie Prize for Painting

2001 - National Physical Laboratory painting competition, second prize.

Group exhibitions

1989 Exposition Marseilles du Credit, Marseilles 6em

1991 L'école du Treizième 'Travail fait sur Place'

1992 Gallerie des Tableaux.

1995 '19 Artists '95' at Whiteleys, Queensway, London

1997 St Ives, Cornwall 'Out of the Shadow' (part of the Peninsula Programme)

1998 Art Présent Galerie, Paris - 'Le Groupe des Quatre'

From 1998 - annual Chertsey Artists exhibitions

1996/7 and 2001/2 - Borough of Richmond upon Thames Orleans Open Exhibition.

Solo Exhibitions

The Molesey Gallery 1996 and '98, the Salthouse Gallery, St Ives 1997, the Space Gallery, Fulham 1998, the Windsor Street Gallery, Chertsey, 2000.

Art Fairs

1995-8 and 2002 - Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington

1997, '99 and '01 - Battersea Contemporary Art Fair, London

2002 - the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Park, London (on two stands).

Commercial Galleries - selected works

Ropner Gallery in Wandsworth, the Molesey Gallery, the Plumbline Gallery and the Salthouse Gallery in St Ives, the Fairfax, Bowlby and the Stevenson Galleries in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the Gallery at Architecture Ltd in Greenwich, the Claire Gallery in Teddington, the Frivoli Gallery in Chiswick, Moreton Contemporary in Pimlico, London, the Anderson Hill Gallery in Kingston upon Thames, CCA Gallery in Farnham, Hants, Farr's Gallery in Ripley, Surrey and Britart.com on the Internet.

And also

From 1996, in the Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington, three large paintings hung, on loan.

Inspirations

Georgio Morandi, Paul Cézanne, Georges Braque, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still.

"There is nothing more abstract than the visible world" - Georgio Morandi

"A world observed and translated - a world created from the natural and the man-made: 'still life' a still life both drawn and felt, as one would admire and caress a well-loved jug, or wonder at the light on the water of the Thames on a calm spring morning" - Henrietta Stuart

How I work

My paintings have developed over the years from abstracts based on still life to compositions woven from images taken from the natural world. My inspiration as always is from places and images that I have seen. The compositions are worked up from extensive drawing, both of the landscape and of still life groups set up in the studio. The finished pieces range from almost totally abstract compositions evoking a sense of place to more easily recognisable landscape images: natural world modulated by time and season, disclosed by visual texture and colour.

The route from composition drawings to finished painting is often long (but always exciting). As with time I gain in experience of colour-over-colour and colour-next-to -colour, so I have to steer among an ever greater range of possibilities, and it all has to be worked out on the canvas, it can not be done inside one's head.

Colour and light play the most important parts in my work. Colour is used to evoke emotion, and gives a sense of time and place; light is used to create space and to mask and hide objects, creating a sense of mystery.