Why I Paint
Shape, light, colour, combination of colours or some quirky little detail catches my eye. Sometimes it's a moment when all these things come together and fit perfectly into a happy composition. I am a hunter/gatherer, craving knowledge, pleasure and understanding. Painting, for me, is like that - foraging, making sense of the world. I am drawn to beauty-but what defines beauty? It can be in composition, in patterns, but most importantly in the play of light. It's not the grass, cliffs or beaches that I find beautiful so much as the light acting upon those things. I find it wonderful that every blade, every stone has its own 5 minutes of glory in the limelight - its moment of beauty.
Anticipation is part of experiencing beauty and the sense of achievement when finally rewarded after waiting for just the right moment to capture it. In an instant beauty is here. Then it has passed. Like a camera I form a vision in my head so strong it stays with me and brings me joy.
It is a thrill to be alone in a theatre of a landscape, witnessing the natural performance unfold.
I am humbled and exalted by just looking at the incredible detail in the transparent crest of a breaking wave or the contrasts in shadow and sun on the landscape. I know I am nothing. These things will always be here gloriously complete long after I've left. The World will carry on regardless but I feel privileged to have experienced the things I've felt and seen then recorded them forever on canvas. It puts my life in perspective and gives me an inner calmness.
Gathering image references and painting from them are solo pursuits but I am also driven to share these experiences through paint. Being endorsed by a viewer or client who has seen or felt the same makes all my efforts worthwhile.
When I'm observing or painting I feel I'm a child again with a sense of wonder at the littlest of details - sand ripples, cloud shadows, flocks of birds in full flight. What I understand now is that pleasure is not just in what I see but in what looking for it does to me.
As in the words of William Blake, "See a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour."
