I come from a family of painters and this exhibition is a happy opportunity to bring us all together, showcasing an interesting variety of styles and themes. I have a number of new pieces on the go including a bright and chirpy collection of Toy Car still lives, Wiltshire and Cornwall landscapes, and four new additions to my Comedian etching series, all of which will be making their debut at the exhibition.

This exhibition is also supporting The Halo Trust with a percentage of all sales going toward their cause. The Halo Trust is a non-profit humanitarian charity whose purpose is to remove debris left behind by war, in particular landmines. I shall  be including a few paintings based on images from some of the areas The Halo Trust has helped.

Exhibition details to follow….

My aim with these new paintings was to capture a sense of mood and I often found the light and colours of a morning or early evening the best times to explore this. The Autumn weather and tides also played their part: the fresh bright mornings where the light bounced between the water and boats in an explosion of colour; or the clear-skied evenings where the sinking light subdued and harmonised the scene, restraining the palette. It has been a real joy getting into landscape painting, engaging in a much deeper way with the sunsets, cloudscapes and rhythms of the daylight, weather and seasons. I have only started to scratch the surface of these things but look forward to the journey it promises to be.

Four recent paintings of Putney can now be seen at Warrens, The Putney Estate Agents, 139 Lower Richmond Road, SW15 1EZ  or you can view the whole collection of Putney paintings here online.

Open studios

Dates:

• 1 st October: 12 – 6pm  with an Evening Reception from 6 – 9pm
  
• 2nd October: 12 – 6pm

Address:

• 7-9 Church Row, Wandsworth plain, Wandsworth, SW18 1ES
• See google maps. Travel info: East Putney Tube (10 mins), Wandsworth Town Train (5 mins) Buses 87, 39, 156 stop directly opposite the front door!

Once inside the front door go straight along the corridor and through the door immediately in front of you. This take you out into the garden. There will be another door open to the building on your right, go in, turn left and follow the signs upstairs to my studio.

I will be showcasing my new paintings of Putney, alongside other works including my Etchings and collection of Toy and Puppet paintings, many of which will be for sale at special studio prices!

For those of you not yet familiar with the story, last December the lease expired on our old studios – also in Wandsworth but a bit more tucked away. For a month or so prior to  eviction we (‘we’ being the wonderful Collective Studios which I am part of) were still uncertain of whether we’d have any studios to move to, then the good graces of Wandsworth council came to our aid along with a rather extraordinary Georgian building on Wandsworth plain. I am still to get the full history of the building but as far as I’ve gathered it’s been through some major tinkering in its time: turned from a house to flats, then back to a house, it now stands somewhere in between the two, with a warren of rooms that lead off of rooms and strange toilets and pink bathrooms that emerge suddenly round corners. Having been empty for a long time it was in a rather bad state when we took it on in January of this year. Now however I am pleased to say it’s really taken on a new lease of life under the care and management of Charlie Day and Mark Nader. There are just over 20 emerging artists like myself working there at the moment, all in a variety of different disciplines, which you can have a good explore of during the open studios. We have a large blossoming walled garden at the studios which leads back onto Wandsworth’s famed wandle, so if the weather is cheery all the more reason to pop along! This is also a chance to talk directly to artists about their work and discuss possible commissions.

I have a lot of work in the pipe line and shall be steadily expanding and adding to what you now see in the gallery. So to keep abreast of new works added or upcoming exhibitions sign up to my newsletter.

Hope you enjoy!

The brief was to adapt Marc Chagall’s mural for the Paris Opera House for the ceiling of a family living room. Chagall’s mural is a wonderful celebration of Paris, Opera and some of the musical greats. It is an absolute feast of colour and movement and working from it taught me a huge amount about the poetry of painting and composition. The commission saw the transformation and division of Chagall’s original circular scheme into two rectangular panels, each measuring 3m x 1.5 m, installed on the ceiling next to each other, either side of a large beam which divided the room. There was also one further separate Chagall inspired panel (measuring 2m x 1.5m)  bringing together his painting called The Equestrian with a rather cheeky poem by E.E. Cummings called ‘May I Feel.’

To see more images of the mural in situ click here. For a stage by stage development of the mural from blank white panels to installation see my facebook page.

This featured picture shows me in the thick of things, painting away in a self storage lock up in wandsworth – the only place I could find that would accommodate all three panels. Without any windows and tucked away in amongst other similar lock up storage units it affectionately become known as ‘the cave.’