Sketch Book 2013

Across the Dock
Ink and Bleach sketch.

 Underneath my face

Ever grinning and wide eyed.
No need for any make-up!
















 View across the Docks.

Pen and pencil on paper.  I've been keeping some sketchbooks and drawing images from digital photographs that I took in 2012.

Sketches from a photographs taken whilst out cycling along the River Lee.  I always take my camera, there are some amazing sights along the river and some really great scenes, although the area is often littered with debris and the wildlife and plant-life is amazing and thriving.  Mechanical structures are everywhere.

 A sketch of trees, almost desolate and tangled, can't see the wood for the trees comes to mind and there seems no end to the path.

An image made up, trying to incorporate a little of everything.  A heavily populated area needs facilities, electricity, energy, something to keep the dark interior light and warm!

Degree Show 2012

After three years of hard work I am delighted to invite you to the Fine Art Degree Show 2012 at the University of East London, ADI Gallery, Docklands Campus, University Way, London, E16 2RD. 

The Private view is on Thursday, 17th of May from 6pm to 9pm and the exhibition will be open to the public on Friday 18th May until Sunday 20th May from 11.00-17.00

Vast biblical skies pierced by epic ironmongery,
ironmongery dotted between, gardens, playing fields and wastelands
alongside rivers, canals and railway lines
stretching their wares across the land 
like the lines of a vast cable car
Between them the circular gas temples
rising up and down 
like an iron lung.

Keep away from them,
they are dangerous
you don't want one in your garden
or at the end of your street
they dominate the skyline
the gasometers and the pylons

The wind whistles through them they cast shadows that spread out across the land

they mingle with the clouds
and provide a respite for the weary birds

Urban Images

Old Tree - Water colour painting from a photograph taken whilst wandering around.  I think it would probably look good as some sort of book illustration, but I like the textures and different greens of the leaves and wanted to paint something in reasonable detail.

Oil on Canvas.

Another painting from a photograph.  I liked the way that some of the leaves caught the sunlight, making the shadows darker.  The foliage behind the fence was very dense meaning that it was impossible to see what lay beyond.  Small pieces of plant life that would have no place in an ordered and well kept garden thrive in empty and unloved urban derelict spaces.  Nature has a way of always filling the void!

Hackney Street

Oil painting on canvas, 4ft x 4ft.

This particular image appealed to me, the flats in the distance are Sivill House on Columbia Road.  The road is a small derelict back street in the city of London, quite close to the railway arches.  The whole image seems to leave lots of unanswered questions, as an urban landscape, it doesn't really mean anything, its just there, you might quickly walk down the street on your way somewhere, wonder what the buildings once housed, why the car was parked there and then move on.

Solo Exhibition in November 2011

You are invited to the private view of my Solo Exhibition on Thursday 3rd November 2011 from 6.00pm to 10.00pm at The Gallery Cafe, St. Margaret's House Settlement, 21 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, E2 9PL.

This exhibition is a good opportunity to see a large selection of my art work from the last two years. including oil paintings, watercolours and prints.

The Exhibition is called “No Pedestrians beyond this Point”

How to find the Café Gallery

Via underground: From Bethnal Green Tube Station (Central Line), take the Museum of Childhood exit. Proceed along Museum frontage to the first corner which is Old Ford Road. Turn right into Old Ford Road and No.21 is on the other side of the road, just past York Hall.

Via bus: Nos. 8 -106 - 254 - 309 - 388 - D3 and D6.

Via car: There should be parking in Victoria Park Square, Approach Road and other surrounding roads.

Please feel free to bring along friends and colleagues, there will be a raffle the prizes of which will be limited edition prints of my work. Prints and artwork are also for sale on the evening.

Artist Statement

I have been working with various media and have recently developed urban scenes from personal photographs taken in and around the city of London.  In my current work I have been using oil paints and print making techniques, as well as image projection.

It is my intention to express the notion that previously neglected spaces in city areas can provide captivating images amidst the detritus discarded by humanity.  Much of these wastelands and unchecked areas are neglected for decades before they are released for development by which time they have become integrated into the community.  They have become a part of the local area, there to be trespassed on, traveled through, used as playgrounds, rubbish tips and short cuts from area to area.

A Rainy Night in the City - 2011

A rainy night in the City.

An oil painting of a photo taken on the way to Liverpool Street Station in London after visiting the 400 Women Exhibition in Shoreditch.  Whilst walking back to the station in the rain,  I liked the way the street and building lights reflected on the wet pavement and the buildings glimmered in the night sky.  People hunched up in the rain rushing to their various destinations, buses in the distance turning the corner, nearly to the station which is just around the bend depicted through the blurred vision of the viewer.  A hive of activity irrespective of the wet and cold weather.

End of Year Show - 2011

Please see details of the End of Year Private View for 2011.

Would be lovely to see you there

End of Year Exhibition

Private View:

Friday June 10th 2011

6.00pm onwards

Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Installation

University of East London
Docklands Campus

AVA Building, University Way
London E16 2RD

Tube:   Cyprus DLR

Parking available on Campus via University Way

"Bulgaria in Our Eyes"

This painted was created for The World in our Eyes Exhibition exhibition at the Bulgarian Embassy.

"Bulgaria in our Eyes"

Painting of the Alexander Nevsky Russian Church in Sophia, Bulgaria - for the World in Our Eyes Series of Exhibitions.

Latest Paintings

 Behind the Fence.

An oil painted image from a photo taken whilst walking around my local area.   This picture could be from anywhere, it depicts a mass of disorderly plant growth rising from the earth but kept behind a mesh fence.  Nature, but kept out, kept back, kept away.

 


Ontario Tower

Oil on Canvas.  Every time I travel through Blackwall, the O2 building peeps through the gaps, once described as a "Great White Elephant".  The landscape of London's docklands is changing at an accelerated rate now that the Olympics are almost upon us and is almost unrecognisable from the the Docklands of 10 years ago.

Keith's Tree

Yachts at Sunset

North London Flat Lands

I frequently go past these flats in Ponders End, via car and train.  You can see them from as far away as Harlow, whilst driving down the M25, the A10 and the North Circular  They seem to have always been there!  Over the years the colours have changed, they have been updated and intercoms have been put in

Behind the Fence 2010

An image from a photograph that I took of Ivy climbing up an old garden fence. I liked the textures and the contrasts of the light and the shadows and also the idea that perhaps there was something going on behind the fence which I was not party to, that I could just make out shapes and colours through the gaps. The temptation was to go right up to the fence to try and peer through the gaps to see what was going on, what was I missing by being on the wrong side of the fence?

Bare trees

There's just something about bare/dead trees. I remember being absolutely fascinated by the "petrified" tree outside the history museum when I was a child. How had "turned to stone". I thought it was mad, how could that happen to a tree.  I was told that the tree was very very ancent!

I just love the way that they stand out from all the other trees and foliage, the silhouette they create against the sky and the fact that even though the tree itself may have died, other things can still grow around it or that it can even "come back to life" with new foliage growing up from the base.

My interests and current subject matters are neglected areas of the city and suburbs, I like to paint and create prints of the waste lands that surround us and I find many of the structures within these wastelands and "no go" areas fascinating, such monoliths as gasometers and pylons, and the plants that grow unattended around them, mostly housed inside railings and barbed wire, intended to keep people out. Uncontrived areas grown over time and nurtured with neglect. These places are everywhere but we take no notice of them.  They have an isolation a desolate feel that attracts me to them.



















These trees are painted from a photograph that I took from the passenger side of the car whilst driving up the motorway.  It was raining quite heavily at the time and they really stood out

I've been struggling to find subject matter to draw/paint during the summer but now I think I found a few and painting is so much more rewarding than washing/ironing/cooking/cleaning/, so hopefully I will be posting a few more on my blog soon.

Watercolours 2010

Got my watercolour paints out the other day to do some painting. Had loads and loads of ideas, which all strangely evaporated as soon as I looked down at the blank paper!

After Sundown at the Canal

Silkscreen print

Storm in the Distance

Screen Print on Fabriano Paper
Water colour on Silk Screen.

If anyone is looking at this post/posts, I would really appreciate some comments on these images and the feelings that they invoke for the viewer

Sunset at the Canal

Sci Fi Energy

Latests works

My Paintings

Moonlit Tree 2006

Acrylic on Canvas









London Square Mile Skyline - 2006.


I wanted to capture the buildings within the square mile that I saw everyday both coming into and leaving london from the train, including the churches at Shoreditch. The best views were always when the sun was coming up in the morning, but the most satisfying view was in the evening when the train was leaving Liverpool Street because I would be sitting on the train, going home from work.