Portraits - Personal Statement

"Art must discover and reveal the beauty which prejudice and caricature have overlaid".

For me, painting is a response to the subtle drama and beauty that surrounds our everyday lives. In even the most commonplace and apparently mundane of objects or moments, it is possible to find the mysterious and intangible beauty within and around us.

My task is to depict the magical quality found in ordinary life and extraordinary people with simplicity and sincerity. To this end I draw instruction from the great paintings of The British, Spanish and Dutch schools, exemplified by Masters such as Velasquez, Hals, Raeburn and Sargent.

When I approach a portrait, I look at the individuality of each sitter. I paint to reveal the subject's unique character within a context of their universal human dignity. It is my belief that portraiture should create a likeness which in spirit is psychological and timeless, moving beyond mere illustration, into the very essence of the sitter. In this way, painting becomes a process of revelation and evocation as well as of description: a victory over the vagaries of time with the potential to make the invisible visible.