Where paintings find their way.
I rarely know exactly where a painting will end up when I begin. I start with colour, a mark, a feeling or an idea, then work into it. Some decisions are deliberate. Others happen through accident, frustration or the discovery of something I hadn’t planned.
A painting develops through layers of making and unmaking. I add, scrape back, cover, reveal and reconsider. Earlier marks sometimes disappear; sometimes they remain, becoming part of what gives the finished work its depth. I’m interested in that tension between control and letting go, between knowing what I want and allowing the painting to take me somewhere unexpected.
Working with the surface
I work with oils, cold wax and mixed media, building surfaces that hold traces of their own making. Colour, texture and gesture matter, but so does what happens between them: the quieter passages, the disruptions, the marks that refuse to disappear completely.
My paintings move between abstraction and recognisable imagery. Some have a clear starting point; others gradually find their own language. I don’t want every painting to follow the same rules. The work needs room to change.
When thread enters the painting
In some works, painting alone doesn’t quite say everything I want it to say. That’s where stitching enters.
I sew directly through the hardened painted surface, using coloured thread to create lines, raised textures and connections across the canvas. The thread changes the painting physically as well as visually. It catches the light, casts small shadows and introduces a different kind of mark, one made slowly, stitch by stitch.
Stitching is one part of my practice, not a formula for every painting. I use it when the work calls for it.
A work in progress
The studio is where the decisions happen: the uncertain beginnings, the layers that don’t work, the unexpected discoveries and the point at which I know a painting has reached its own conclusion.
Not every mark survives. Not every idea makes it onto the canvas. That’s part of the work, too.