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Chelsea School of Art  1981-5   Foundation, BA Hons


I use the medium of paint to reflect on exploring the world of nature. I have a fascination for colour, tone and shades and how they work in a composition.  My work is figurative as I love to draw outside and observe life in all forms.  As light changes throughout the day, it is the random occurrences one find to observe and to add to a work of art that fuels the joy of life for a painter of my sort.


While most of my work has been about places that I have known well and travelled to, a love of trees has evolved into an eternal curiosity for the world of plants and their variety.  As the human race has continued to evolve through the ages, plants and trees are the epitome of the cycle of life, providers of endless significance for the curious and by their genius ability to metamorphose, have the power to renew life eternal and therefore have been the subject of the earliest known art.


Whilst the botanical artist looks in detail at the individual plant I like to place the plant in an environment and therefore a composition. A form offering us its expression of leaves, and its song or flag of flora and the colours that represents the world of emotion.  What better way to look at the subjective world than with the world of botany.  Where possible most of my paintings are made outside and where less accessible, I will use drawing and watercolour to work out a composition.  I have painted in wild places, cliffs overlooking and by the sea, I have sat wind swept and waterlogged on the Fens, I have been indulged by the designs of cultivated gardens and allotments.


My work is ongoing.  It is with pleasure I will accept a commission; these I have drawn and painted on site at peoples houses and gardens including locations in towns and cities. 


I have created a workshop DrawingLife to aid in the teaching of art to students of all ages which is readily available also.  Research on how plants for centuries have been used in methods of healing and communication inspired my painting Saffron Florigraphy that won 2nd prize in the Greenfingers Flowers Power Art Challenge 2016.


My painting of Aldeburgh Beach appears on the front cover of Aldeburgh, A Song of the Sea by Tim Coates, a book written on the cultural life of Aldeburgh featuring many artists such as Benjamin Britten, John Piper, Edward FitzGerald and sold in shops around the country including the National Gallery.


Exhibitions include Art for Youth, Mall Galleries 1990; a series of paintings of Nepal and Aldeburgh, shown solo at the Stephen Bartlett Gallery, Chelsea 1991; the Hooper Gallery, St John’s Wood; the Aldeburgh Cinema Gallery 1992, and with Saxmundham Music and Arts 1993.  A series of paintings of the Trees of Audley End at Saffron Walden Library 2005; Lofty Trees and Waterways, both solo exhibitions at Michaelhouse, Cambridge 2007 and 2008, Saffron Walden Open Studios 2011, Riverside Gallery, Saffron Walden 2012.  I opened my house to the public with Cambridge Open Studios from 2004 to 2014 and concurrently I exhibit with Cambridge Drawing Society which I have been a member of since 2005.


I have donated a number of drawings, prints and several hundred cards to various educational establishments and charities.


Greeting cards are for sale at the Tourist Information Centre, Saffron Walden and with Orwell Press at the Aldeburgh Book Shop.