Introduction
I'm a Scottish artist, primarily a painter, printmaker and photographer. I live and work from my studio on the North-east Scotland coast.
I am interested in multi-narrative painting which is ambiguous but which may provoke dialogue about important subjects. I make work which purports to have certain narratives or concepts but, with deeper analyses, may actually be about other things. My starting point is often an idea formed by the crossing of two or more news stories or human situations, and how I as an individual relate to them. They could be about other people, or about myself. I imaginatively use a variety of sources to arrive at compositions, including sketches, movie clips, my own photography, magazines, television.
The underlying subject matter aims to question my / our own place in society, using the word society in its broadest sense. I aim to encourage people to react on an emotional and intellectual level, to make them think about things they might not otherwise think about, to make them ask questions and to provoke dialogue.
Before I devoted myself to art full-time I was a professional ecologist and teacher. Wildlife and wild landscapes are a passion, and these often form the backdrops to my paintings, but are not usually a main part of any narrative.