About me
As a painter, I hope to celebrate the energy, excitement and diversity of the landscape.
As a young child I drew prolifically from my imagination, covering the floor with different iterations of the same subject. The obsession with doing many versions of, what outwardly looks the same, has stayed with me and I return to my favourite places and themes to paint.
My family was very creative and we lived in a rambling farmhouse in Suffolk where I spent many happy hours sketching in the surrounding fields. I was inspired by paintings produced by artist friends of my parents whose work decorated the walls of our home.
It was therefore a surprise to my family when I decided to study medicine, although my artists eye and an ability to draw came in handy when studying anatomy. After qualifying as a doctor, I spent a year completing a Foundation course at Wimbledon Art school before returning back to medicine and have worked as a GP in inner London ever since, and along the way, brought up four children.
The dissonance between the countryside and my urban everyday life has inspired me as I have been drawn to paint the wilder landscapes of Wales and Cornwall. Working and family life has been busy but the wish to create never left me and I continued to paint whenever possible.
I mainly paint outdoors and hope to capture the light and elements as I experience them, even if freezing and getting soaked to the skin which adds to the visceral element of my work. I mainly use oil on canvas but will use acrylics, pastels and charcoal in preparation.
If the weather is truly impossible, I use photos as a prompt or paint still lives, or, if I can persuade people to sit still, paint portraits which now decorate the houses of many of my friends.
I find creativity invigorating and complementary to my role as a GP, a job I love. As I now work part time, I will finally be able to spend more time developing as a painter.