Artist's Statement

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Drawing the Skin of the Earth. I love drawing. It’s the simplicity of it - making marks (often with pencil on paper) to record observations and experiences. It may be simple, but I believe it is fundamental to good art practice and good art teaching.

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I grew up in West Cornwall, England, where the earth’s ‘skin’ has a distinctive quality. The brutality of the granite cliffs, the foaming white sea and the shifting sands continue to influence my artwork. As I experience new landscapes, I am constantly drawn to the first layer that I see, standing there looking out, looking down. Be it weather-worn or brittle, the earth’s skin while at variance to our own, has a connection with us through our fingers, feet and face.

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Twig, stone and steel – I borrow tactile fragments from the land and take them back to my studio. I start small, moving back and forth from observation to memory. Curiosity and creativity are inter-twined as I try to expose the qualities of the random and uneven. I experiment freely with contrasting media e.g. graphite and oil; ink and bleach, until they become partners reflecting the relationship between memory and corporeal responses. I am exploring and responding to the works as they evolve, with no finite outcome intended.

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Representations become increasingly gestural and visceral. They are impressions of a primal existence – substantial but at the same time transient. Take the Ladakh artworks for example. Studies of slate splinters from the mountainside, when driven by my hand, evoke sensations of fragmentation, falling and weight – analogous to physical and mental exertions during the treks at high altitude.

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My drawings seek to surpass the over-exercised, conditioned practice that we frequently witness. Some would describe them as abstract; I prefer the term abstract realism. I ask you to consider - are abstract experiences, when sponged from our senses, now more in context with reality?

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