About The Artist

Even at an early age I thought different, don't get me wrong I am not a genius nor am I some weirdo that scares people half to death with his views or beliefs, well not all the time anyway, but one thing I have always had is a need for art be it classical, surreal, modern or old, when I was only a small boy I can remember my Father sketching and being totally blown away, not by his drawing but by what he actually saw, the way he defined light and shade and the almost separate images it produced, it is this area that I'm most fascinated with. I was introduced to the airbrush at the age of 18 (when I was in my motor bike stage) and after spraying about a dozen or so bikes around the area I soon became bored with the whole process of being hassled every day with the same old questions ("is it ready yet?") so ended this brief direction of my artwork.

A few years ago I became almost obsessed by the work of H R Giger and the techniques he used , thus I began airbrushing again , this time I threw away my masking film and scalpel and instead started to work freehand and search for ready made masks in every day objects to date these include : fan grills ,computer scrap ,string ,broken jewellery ,tea trays ,torn paper ,lace curtains , paper doilies even the wife's underwear hasn't been spared .After much experimenting I still feel I haven't found my ideal paper ,I seem to have a love of very textured surfaces such as canvas board etc but these don't suit the nature of the airbrush very well or my preference of using quite low air pressures ,so most of my work is on very heavy cartridge paper. The airbrush I use is an Aztek (A470) these differ from other airbrushes and are very easy and quick to clean, (please look at favourite sites page for link) which is ideal for the type of work I produce as it helps me get my fleeting ideas down on paper  quickly without  purging out time after time. 

Painting for me is an escape from the real world, I never allow myself to become a victim with the bondage of subject matter or even give a second thought about taste... if you are serious about your artwork then life is way too short to worry about such trivial things like this, even if it upsets people,  after all such is life.

I am one of the few Surrealist that don't conform to normal surrealistic values, many, many times I have been criticised in debates by other surrealists even to the point of excommunication among groups after expressing my personal views about Breton ect, this is not to say I don't respect the work of my peers in fact this could be no further from the truth but rather I have a deep feeling about Surrealism and I feel it should always be delving deeper and exploring new ideas, what has been done in the past never need to be explored again as what is done before becomes realism and we are only searching for things beyond that horizon.

This is one reason why I first started using the PC as an artists tool, it is a fresh medium that has only just begun to be recognised as an art form in itself, with practice it is possible to be able to use this medium in an automatic fashion or to simulate a variety of styles.

The largest paintings I dare produce (at the moment) are usually 100" x 100" as my studio just doesn't have enough room to view what I'm painting if any larger ,also modern house's tend to look stupid with huge 2 meter square pieces hung floor to ceiling . The best way to describe my paintings is quite hard, my paintings are based on fleeting images of the mind rather then prolonged (dedicated) and deliberate images, these are probably my unconscious way of trying to describe those fleeting glimpses as a child that made so much sense at the time (whether I understood them or not), every thing had it's place no matter how bizarre it fitted the world perfectly. As you can probably guess by the contents of my paintings ,people either love them or hate them with a passion ( but either way I do get a reaction every time someone looks at my painting for the first time) this I find on the whole more pleasing, because even if you hate my paintings - you will think about them and after all isn't that what every painting (good or bad) deserves.

signed:

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