When I started painting landscapes in 2005 while on holiday in Italy, initially I felt almost defeated by the changing light, the colours, the intrusive presence of the sky. Gradually I was beginning to be able to reduce the unnecessary and to condense those aspects of a landscape that struck me the most.
Portrait is probably the most difficult and the most demanding type of painting. It has the static nature of a still life and the complexity of a landscape, while at the same time bringing the character and the soul of the person portrayed, and the likeness into the task. In portraiture an artist places themself under the scrutiny of the public and the subject, thus becoming both accountable and vulnerable.
The world of sensation and emotion as conveyed through the use of paint and other materials, where the subject of a painting is not a recognisable reality but rather the material itself, abstract art is an artist's response to the world, to what in the world, physical or otherwise, strikes an artist's sensitivity and compels them to react.
The question is whether it is possible to create serious art for people who think, feel and perceive the world differently to us. Is it possible to make a painting of a teddy bear in the same way as that of an apple? Children are naturally drawn to illustration, and also to kitsch. Is it possible to introduce them to the beauty of painting as an art form through the depiction of what they are interested in? A twofold task.