ARTIST PROFILE

Growing up near the small New England mill city of Manchester, New Hampshire, I was surrounded by architectural reminders of its industrial past; not only the long red brick mill buildings themselves, but also the genteel public buildings and private residences that were results of the mills' success. My first explorations of these spaces' interiors and exteriors were through photography, sketching and watercolour, and through memories of experiences in high-ceilinged Victorian rooms, sunlight streaming through tall windows.

 

I studied Studio Art at the University of Vermont, playing in the university jazz ensembles and developing my love of hiking and skiing in the mountains. My studies saw me specialising in painting under Abstract Expressionist painter Frank Owen, and also with charcoal animations, for which I developed my own techniques, before a calling to teach ultimately led me to a different degree and career path. I taught for 22 years, living in America, Japan and the United Kingdom, which serendipitously allowed me to meet my wife and travel widely, but left little time for my own artistic work, especially after the arrival of two beautiful children.

 

In 2018, I left teaching, giving me back the time to put back into my creative journey. I now work mainly in acrylics, and almost entirely abstractly. I am still heavily influenced by the quality of light, the palpable feeling of history and the effects of time on materials that etched themselves so deeply into me during my New England upbringing.

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I live in Ivybridge in England, with my wife, Nicola, and our two children, where the beauty of the Westcountry landscape keeps my soul balanced and enables in me the capacity to plumb the depths of my memories and imagination.