My work is a painterly response to the classic subject matter of the 'garden'. The paintings balance photographic depth of field and pixilation with traditional painting techniques. Built up through thin layers of oil paint, there are areas of intense detail balanced with gestural brushwork, encouraging the viewer to enter the space and be transported into a verdant landscape alongside being absorbed by the surface of the paintings.
Many of the gardens are imagined places but are a response to formal and wild gardens of Dorset, Wiltshire and Normandy. From walled gardens to wild hedgerows and beautiful planting in French villages I look at rich layers of plants for my imagery. Contemporary developments in garden design, film and photography are important ingredients in the work and allow me to respond to an ever-changing subject matter. My move to a studio on the Island of Portland four years ago has had a major impact on the direction of the work but it has also given me a working space that opens up onto a garden. The range of formal plants is balanced with the wild flowers that survive and flourish in this austere landscape.
The last 2 years have seen a greater emphasis placed on the balance between the control placed on both the landscape and the brush marks and the freedom of plants and paint to flourish independently. Hedgerows, wild flowers, birds and grasses have emerged with greater energy whilst the painterly setting remains gestural and suggestive. The appreciation of plants, nature and the landscape and my painted response to it have been, like for so many other people, an increasingly important aspects of life over the last few months. The pleasure of being in the studio together with my garden or in parkland has never been so important and so closely connected.