Gallery
Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas
Drawings
Drawings
Acrylic on paper
Acrylic on paper
Commentaries
Man crying
Many years ago I was deeply impressed by a painting of a man crying made by someone described as having mental problems. So many tears were gushing out the room he was sat in had filled up enough to submerge his feet and lower legs in tears. I felt this was a profound work describing the pent up and unexpressed emotions of men.
Wanting to create something similar I was at a loss until I came upon a photograph of a seated dancer being showed with diffused water droplets. Having previously been impressed by an exhibit in a children’s ceramic exhibition where one student had created a human figure out of a tap, I felt that joining these two images together would solve my dilemma. Consequently I painted my man with a basin for a head. From his heart a pipe extends to a running tap, the source of an explosion of pent up tears. ‘The saddest tears are those uncried’.
Anne Boleyn reading her first letter from Henry VIII
In 2010 I saw Amanda Raison play Anne Boleyn at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. She convinced me more than any actor to suspend disbelief, such that I was watching Anne Boleyn, not an actress playing her part. Her performance inspired this painting.
For me Anne Boleyn is a monumental British icon demonstrating great courage, power and spiritual awareness. I have read in life she was stunning through the strength of her personality. Also I learnt that it was with Anne that Henry VIII enjoyed his only equal relationship.
A publicity photograph was my starting point. Wanting to add a sense of movement and dynamism to Anne, I used my dancer drawings to construct her body and profile. She is dressed in a modern dress which I felt suited her high status. This dress contains ten roses, the dark ones coming from my own drawings. Another significant choice was to turn Anne’s attendants into Daleks.
Daleks are also icons and I believe say great things about our society now. I like to think these icons of British culture increase the presence and enigma of each other. Following some disaster Daleks need external protection to house their vulnerable remains and heart. I felt this casing could represent ego and separation. I feel their humanity is growing back, hence I have given them hands. Also in this painting the Tardis is a giant teapot.
The hands on the left near the execution sword are Buddhist mudra. My favourite is the one farthest left about to touch the sword guard. When the wedding finger touches the thumb, this mudra means fearlessness. I made it so these fingers are about to touch the sword that will end her life, signifying her fearlessness of death. I read that fearlessness is when the heart fully understands that there is nothing from which it needs to protect itself from.
Anne Boleyn had dark eyes, here I have painted Amanda Raison’s eyes. Anne Boleyn’s reading of this letter begins history that remains potent to this day. My prime aim was to paint a woman of great power.
Swifts soaring around the spire of Salisbury Cathedral
Like so many I am in awe of the Swifts that visit us in summer. They fly over my house in Leicester. Their acrobatics and screeches amaze me. To celebrate their magnificence, I placed them soaring around the inspiring spire of Salisbury Cathedral. Initially I painted only the larger swifts but felt additions were necessary.
Bolton Abbey
I decided to paint Bolton Abbey not long after the death of my father to commemorate him. We had visited the Abbey together where he bought a pocket size wooden cross for me. I did not keep it. That act of kindness resonated for me after he died and when conceiving this work I knew I wanted to include him giving this cross to me. He comes into the painting on the right holding the cross, walking towards me holding. The distance between us represents our problems communicating. The hand immediately in front of him is a Buddhist mudra representing fearlessness.
In my previous three Yorkshire Abbeys in oil paint, I have included a bird. Wanting to continue this theme and unsure how to include a bird I was surprised to find I had unconsciously painted a giant spiritual bird swooping down. It was there twenty minutes before I noticed this satisfying addition. Within the Abbey walls I have included two giant smiles.
Queen Maya’s dream
I read that Maya dreamt a sacred white elephant came down from the mountains and knelt before her carrying a lotus. She awoke to birds singing. Having told her husband about her dream, Maya added that she believed she would become a mother and gave birth to Buddha.
From this description I made the painting above. We are told that the lotus grows out of mud. The lotus stalk disappears at the bottom of the painting, however you can see it again three times; next to the Robin, skirting Maya’s hair and at the bottom left of the painting suggesting North, East, South and West, symbolizing the great journey each of us make.
Mr and Mrs Milk Baptism
The Lyke wake Walk became very meaningful to me. After being the resident artist commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first Lyke Wake Walk for th North York Moor National Park Authority I began a series of oil paintings based on the drawings I made at that time of the established route.
Mr and Mrs Gun celebrates one of Matisse’s blue nude cut outs which I have developed. This painting is part of my Mr and Mrs series. The background shows the route near Lilla Cross. To the left of Mrs Gun’s head, you can see distant Scarborough castle and behind the shooting butt I have painted a Curlew emerging left. Mrs Gun’s arms are hung up as trophies yet she still smiles. Her husband wears a ladies dress and is smaller and immature compared to his wife.
Rievaulx Abbey
Rievaulx Abbey was my third Yorkshire Abbey painting and first addressing our Climate Crisis. Inspired by the photograph of ‘Earth rising above the moon’ taken by William Anders from Apollo 8, I painted in the owl’s left wing our planet seen at night and from space, demonstrating our fragility and vulnerability. By placing Earth in a bird’s wing I wanted to emphasize the importance of other species and how our survival and wellbeing depends on their survival and wellbeing. We, all other species and planet Earth are profoundly interconnected.
Reivaulx Abbey represents our dazzling human creativity, but is a ruin symbolizing the predicted collapse of civilization.
Donald Campbell above Coniston Water
When Donald Campbell died in January 1967 attempting to increase his own World Water Speed Record, I failed aged 10, to understand that there was a man inside Bluebird and so was surprised by the lamentation my parents expressed when we saw his crash broadcast on television news.
When watching the film ‘Across the Lake’ decades later, addressing Donald Campbell’s final weeks of life at Coniston, I was deeply impressed by his courage and so made this painting respecting his magnificent achievements.
I also felt there were parallels in his life as a Speed King and the life of an artist, both pushing their understanding and abilities towards infinity. Donald Campbell wanted the infinity symbol included on his Bluebird K7 which is shown in this painting.
The Sun raging bliss inside a pebble, north bay Scarborough
Last spring on my way home, I walked past a newly filled trench about 30 metres long. Somehow a mud slip had been caused, which running downhill made an amazing pattern of waves between the trench and roadside kerbstones. Within moments I was thinking of using them for a sea painting. Not long afterwards I associated this idea with a memory of an enormous wave that reared up from nowhere on a very clear day just over fifty years ago on Scarborough’s north beach. I was taking my Grandmas’ and Uncle’s dog Lassie for a walk. I remember watching Lassie’s nose go up and up as she followed the rising wave.
I photographed these waves ready for use and was starting to think how to paint Lassie when ‘by chance’ I found on Instagram another dog, similar to Lassie, responding to an enormous sudden wave. So now I had everything and began.
Inspired by Near Death Experience testimonies I wanted to bring the universe close. I believed that by placing two of my mud wave photographs together I could create a convincing sea. The main foreground wave I painted as the sea and the second wave I painted as The Trifid Nebula. Lassie is made of the Looped Emission Nebula, about 70,000 light years away. The pebble at the bottom of the painting near Lassie’s right hind leg was important to me by representing aloneness or All One Ness. For me the sea energy is representing unconsciousness and the shore consciousness, so the pebble is well placed. Following the universe idea I decided to place the sun inside this pebble believing everything is in everything else. Also, I was responding to a pre-birth interview with Christian Sundberg. Convinced he wanted to abort his birth, God or All That Is or Source came to encourage Christian by showing the conscious sun ‘raging bliss’ inside him, which inspired the title of this painting.
Glenda Jackson as King Lear
“I played him as someone whom had never been told, No.” These were the first words I heard having just switched the radio on. The speaker was Glenda Jackson talking about her portrayal of King Lear. Impressed I made sketches within an hour from a photograph I found. One of these drawings showed her hand which I did not like so rubbed it out. The marks made a heart shape which I expanded. Like King Lear we all need to learn our heart of great love.
Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner
When growing up my father’s mother insisted on watching Coronation Street when she visited. So I was introduced to the long running television series and was struck by the power and presence of Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner.
I feel this was because I belonged to a family dominated by women. That domination was detrimental to some males. Their lives were blighted and impoverished by women, like men blight and impoverish women’s lives. So I chose to paint these two impressive Coronation Street women confronting each other in Scarborough, a place of enormous significance to my family. Both women are based on my dancer drawings as are other figures included on and below Cliff bridge.