Me and My Mentors





I have always been an artist.


Right from the very moment of conception in the womb I believe I have been exploring the possibilities of creativity, and as a child this creativity took the form of drawing on walls - I suspect an expression of complete and utter rebellion and frustration with the strictures of a convent upbringing. This seditious behaviour led to a side-lining attitude by my teachers, which in turn taught me to completely turn my back on any form of authority or rule and I learned instead not to hear what was being taught. I have remained in that mode ever since and found my own way with my art by reading and studying books on numerous mentors namely, Van Gogh, Jackson Pollack, Klimt, Emily Kngwarreye, Jean-paul Riopelle, Patrick Heron and others who have inspired me to solve many difficult and unforeseen problems of aesthetics.


To-day my work reflects much of this inspiration - a never-ending desire for freedom, true freedom, real freedom that can only be found through an inner discipline. Now I have found that discipline and am driven by a need to explore the picture space in terms of the means as well as the personal statements - the latter collaborating with the former - but always reflecting my own truth, whilst simultaneously acknowledging my own existence in the physical reality of the paint; an abstraction of thought; and arriving ultimately at purely artistic composition.


Finally, looking is no good without seeing, just as listening is no good without hearing, and my art is quite simply about looking, seeing, and consequently reacting, which, like anything worthwhile, takes as long as it takes!


Applying stroke upon stroke - wet on wet – always building. Experiencing the moment and the revelation. No mark can ever be wrong – it's simply an experience. The senses tell you whether you like it or not. Just as in living, the subconscious knows whether it is perfection or merely mediocrity. Mediocrity is a bore as it is sadly just repetition – and feeling really alive can never come from repetition – it can only come by allowing oneself to be and feel uncomfortable – because it is only then one is learning something new. It is about what makes what is out there ! Nature is abstraction at its purest – sensations indigenous to each and every person, and those sensations are recycled into an individualistic art form of expression. Truly living art makes no distinction between the beautiful and the ugly – it is simultaneously analytical and spiritual - the artist's own vision of the nature of reality.

All Copyright Reserved