'Over the last few years I have been developing work that deals with my fascination with recollections, the ephemera of memory and nostalgia and the depiction of specific moments in time from my own life. This is reflected in paintings recognising events and experiences associated with the people I am closest to, my family.
My partner Sue, and son Benjy, are the subject of the work, becoming the 'actors' in a continuing and evolving drama. My own photographic images are essential to the creative process, casual snapshot moments which are then developed and changed through the act of painting. Through an obsession with the personal I attempt to portray the universal.
The paintings reflect the joy of the moment but are also paradoxically melancholic reminders of the passing of time. The paint surface is often constructed in a manner that suggests change and chance, the descriptions of people and objects appearing out of the meandering paint surface, the image being coaxed into existence.
These spontaneous effects are, ironically, created over a long period of time. Little preparatory drawing takes place, I much prefer working out what is going on within the painting process itself. Like Max Beckmann (a hero of mine) I am interested in the idea of drawing and painting being driven together in the making of the image.'