Dream Garden at Gateshead

I use natural elements from my surroundings to produce gestural and open metaphorical abstractions that are place-specific yet speak to universal human experience and question assumptions about familiar forms. The works are grounded in an appreciation of the profound as an accumulation of ordinary, even overlooked, moments.

My current paintings are based on the Tree of Heaven which grows despite disregard in an abandoned lot near my studio and whose leaves’ simplicity belies an elegance and grace. I create abstracted stencils from the leaves and slowly build up layers of paint over and around these, allowing traces of shapes and residue of sketched lines to remain as visible trains of thought. Even when finished the paintings retain a feeling of emerging. The works draw from both expressionism with its exuberant color and mark-making and a minimalist tradition with its quiet approach and frugality of means. Rendered in shades of blue with explosions of violets and yellows, layers of familiar natural shapes and blocks of color float above and below painted marks, pushing and pulling against each other to dissolve hierarchies of space.