Art and artists

I was born in Lancashire and went to art school in Bradford, England.

Now I live in Brooklyn, New York. I moved here to study at the MFA programme at the New York Academy of Art, where I graduated cum laude. And although I live in the city, I still do landscape painting, sometimes outside around the metro area, but also in my studio using photographs and other resource material.

I still paint and draw images of the Lake District, using photos from my trips to Cumbria, or images sent to me by my parents, who now live there. I love the diversity of the county’s landscape that has been marked by man, and the way that the weather can change your perception of it. A change of clouds can turn your bright sunny vista into dark domineering mountains.

The coherent element running through all of my work, figurative, landscape, still life, painting or drawing is the emphasis on structure and solidity. Making my subject appear genuine, and in a comprehendible three dimensional space is what I strive for. I paint outdoors when the weather permits, plein air paintings, these are usually direct paintings done in one day. They have a freshness, as you have to work rapidly to capture everything in one day.

Sometimes if I am not fast enough I bring these canvasses back to the studio and work on them. In the studio I usually do layers of glazes, a transparent coat of paint that I work into while it is still wet to bring out the lights, darks and colours.

This process can be time consuming, but the dark areas gain richness from the numerous coats, and can give the painting a great depth of space enhanced by the opacity of the light areas. I use this glazing technique on my still life paintings and when I work from photographs.

Since finishing my degree I have exhibited nationally and internationally. My work has been in solo and group shows in Japan, Great Britain and the United States, and published in The Best of Drawing and Sketching by Rockport Press.