'All of what I do requires enormous amounts of memory. Some of my paintings are drawn from memories of real places. Many of my starting places are insistent, very particular yet very elusive mental images which suddenly spring to mind. These are always landscapes of some sort. I cannot summon them up; they appear whenever they like but they are seasonal and only come to me at set times of the year.
Painting is pretty much a conscious activity and the difficulty I encounter is trying to set these sub-conscious images down in paint in a very self-conscious way, when all too easily the image dies.'
There are two driving forces behind what I do. The first is a commitment to inventing, to creating a whole image, a believable entity, entirely from 'scratch'. This pursuit brings with it personal triumphs, feelings of self-satisfaction when it goes well, when I am able to create the illusion of reality. It is also like running towards the horizon. There is no finish line; there is always more to learn or explore or discover no matter how successful I judge my work to be. I have come to realise lately that what it really is about is a test to myself and in the paintings, the results of this test reveals just how much or little I know about the way the world (in my experience) looks and works. What I have discovered and to what extent I have mastered the technical complexities of painting to reveal this knowledge is revealed in each new painting. Very often I have to be content that all this is something between me and possibly that being which might watch over me. In this world of instant images and the photograph I have to reluctantly accept that most people who look at my work will automatically assume that it is mostly 'done from photographs'. After all, most artists whose work is representational have chosen this method. It is true that not one of us can avoid being influenced by the nature of the photograph but what you see in my work is the result of thirty-plus years of shunning the use of the photograph. What you see is the result of studying from life with drawing and painting but most importantly by looking and questioning, constantly, to learn about the way things are.
The second driving force is a reluctant dedication to landscape painting. It sounds very odd to say this but I clearly remember, at the time I was beginning to study fine art that the one thing I didn't want to do was to become a landscape painter. Landscape painting has often been described as 'genre' painting, a derisory term in itself and landscape painting has continued to be allotted a very lowly place as a genre. I didn't want to end up doing something unfashionable, heaven forbid. To some extent, a family trait of shunning the fashionable (my father was a champion of the underdog) drew me closer to landscape painting. It was natural for me to use this genre to talk about the world, the landscape which I was beginning to explore and my inner feelings and discoveries made as a result of this exploration.