Living in Tasmania I've spent my life surrounded by it's wonderful coast, mountains and rivers which offer a continual source of inspiration to me as an artist. Many of my paintings are drawn from memories of favourite childhood holidays , bushwalking trips and weekend getaways to the coast. I'm not immune to the lure of travel and love to spend time hiking in places as diverse as the Utah deserts and the Italian Dolomite mountains. I'm always looking for colours and shapes in nature that speak to me in a voice demanding to be painted!
My principle mediums are pastels and acrylics but I also enjoy experimenting with inks, watercolours ,collage and mixed media. I paint in a realist style with an emphasis on saturated colour in my acrylic works whilst my pastels tend to have a more muted palette and a more impressionistic approach. I find myself looking at landscapes as "pastels" or "acrylics" in response to the colour and mood of the scene and intuitively know which medium will best convey the emotion of the subject. My paintings are not exact renditions of a scene but rather an attempt to capture the spirit of a place, time and season.
Art is integral to my life and I use it to try and make tangible the joy I find in nature.
Over the years I've won a few art awards . Early prizes included the inaugural Glamorgan Art Prize People’s Choice Award and the Overall Winner and People’s Choice at the 2006 Woodbridge Pleine Aire competition. Recent prizes include Runner Up at the Art Society of Tasmania Annual exhibition 2022 and Winner of the Acrylic and Oil section of the Biannual Waterways exhibtion 2023
I get a great deal of enjoyment in passing on the skills I've learned through study and practice by tutoring at local art groups and on my You Tube Pastel Painting channel.
I have many commissioned paintings in collections throughout the world from Brazil to the US to Spain. I enjoy working with clients to create a painting that reflects their vision, and am happy working from photos to bring a scene to life on canvas. I can be contacted via Bluethumb.