I am exhibiting at the Ashdown Gallery in Forest Row throughout April.

At the end of the first day they had sold 5 paintings!

I am a very happy camper/painter ;0)

Me and Cathie the owner of the Ashdown Gallery

Untitled Art Fair, Kings Road, Chelsea Town Hall

Free Admission for June 2O11 – Tickets Available to Download from March 1st

Friday 3rd June – 5.3Opm – 9pm – Private View [invitation only]

Saturday 4th June – 1Oam – 7pm – Free Public Access

Sunday 5th June – 11am – 5pm – Free Public Access

Visitor Information

Untitled Artists Fair takes place in the Beautiful & Historic Chelsea Old Town Hall on the World Famous Kings Road, London.

London Underground

Circle or District Line to Sloane Square.  Walk across Sloane Square and straight down the King’s Road [keep Peter Jones Department Store on your right hand side].  Chelsea Old Town Hall is approximately ten minutes walk down the King’s Road, on the left hand side immediately opposite the lower end of Sydney Street.

Local Bus Routes

Alight in the King’s Road at Chelsea Old Town Hall and the lower end of Sydney Street numbers 49 or 211.  Alternatively catch bus numbers 11, 19, 22, 211 or 319 from Sloane Square/King’s Road.

Car Parking

There is a small public car park [5O spaces] at the lower end of Sydney Street.  Additional Car Parks are also available including the M&S car park 3OO metres away.  On Street Parking is allowed in metered bays in nearby side streets including Flood Street.  Please also be aware of the London Congestion Charge.

Got a moment to myself so I can now finally update my web site with the images of the new work and write a quick blog post! It’s nice to have my studio back but I just want to get painting again.

1. Wolf at the Door part of the Hove Trail, 16 Hartington Villas, Hove

There will be art indoor and outdoor, jewellery, sculpture, print’s, photographs, unique home-ware, prints and delicious tea and cakes in the garden.

I’ll be showing with Jill Tattersall, Jonny Hannah, Campoli & Nelson, Leonie Bennett, Martha Mitchell, Kandy Ackland, Salina Somalya and Iain Tatam.

I will be there invigilating this Sunday and Sunday the 15th and Saturday the 28th all day.

2. Dodo Vintage, 1 Stirling place just up from the Foragers Pub (the food there is amazing) in Hove. Part of the Independent Trail.

I will be exhibiting as part of a group with Chris Kettle, Ben Allen, Chris Gilvan-Cartwright, Christine Tongue, Kandy Ackland, Simon St John Best, Sylvie Howitt and others. It’s going to be a great show and here and they will have tea and cakes every weekend. It’s a treasure trove of lovingly restored vintage and antique furniture and curios as well as great art.

3. The Circle Studio, 74B Southover Street, Hanover. Part of the Hanover Trail

I will be exhibiting along with two ceramists Barbara Collins and Paula Dryer. Gorgeous little gem of a studio just up the road from The Dover Castle pup on the opposite side of the street.

I will be there all day this Saturday and Saturday the 21st of May. Come by and see me if you are about.

4. Pub Du Vin, 2-6 ship street. Next door to Hotel Du Vin. I will be exhibiting as part of a group show of the Sussex Artists Club. This is in the Central Trail.

You can grab a beer and some great nosh for lunch whilst visiting this one! 17 artists will be showing work including many well known Brighton artists. Too many to list here!

So there you have it. Come see my new work, examples below!

Summer Time, Framed 76x76cm

Celebration, Framed 76x76cm

Carnival 1 30x30cm Acrylic and spraypaint on canvas

I will then be exhibiting in July in the Fishing Quarter Gallery on the seafront in Brighton and will also be in the Summer show at the Ashdown Contemporary Art Gallery in Forest Row then in September I will be exhibiting at the Sussex Prairies open garden and art weekend. If you have never visited the Prairies you should. It’s beautiful!  Anyway here below is a new painting and I must get my butt back in the studio and get on.

Latest Offering 50x50cm

Haven’t had much time to blog as I have been painting up a storm in my studio. I am exhibiting in 3 venues in the May festival and have just signed up for the Untitled Art Fair in Chelsea in June. That’s a lot of work I need to produce!

Anyway here is a taster of what I have done so far. All paintings will reside in white wooden frames. As ever the themes of life and death seem to be evident. Also that other world/alien feel still hasn’t disappeared.  I am loving the softer look in the newer work but how long it will last I don’t know. My paintings seem to change so quickly and I really never know what’s coming next. About to start work on some larger canvases.  As ever nervous and excited.

Eden 50x50cm

Series of 6 paintings all 30x30cm

A larger version of painting number 4 above.

A media agency gave me a call in yesterday morning wanting to run with it for the nationals! I am freaking out. I love doing my work and getting it out there but exposing myself personally is another thing all together. The press can write anything they want and it can become fact when what’s being quoted is fiction. Of course I am worried I am going to end up sounding crazy but I have to weigh that up agains getting national exposure for one of my paintings. Christ this is what most artists dream of! I like to think the image is so striking that the painting will remain in peoples memory, not what has been written about me. Also it’s good to get this painting seen as it has a clear message especially if taken in context to the other three in the series which you can see at the bottom of this post.

Lots of people have been asking me how did this painting come about? Over a year ago I was working on a different painting having finished the Evolution series at 3 a few months before. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with this feeling of sadness and hopelessness. It was really strange as I did not feel it related to me personally, so I decided to paint it. This painting, Evolution 4, was the result of doing so. I could see as I was painting it, that it was turning out to be very different from my other work, much more realistic. For the first and only time I even printed off an image from the internet to use as reference. I really wanted to be sure I got the nuclear cloud right.

I intuitively knew I  wanted to depict a scene of devastation. I used the blue and the upsweeping brushstrokes to look like water flooding in. I put the large red gash in the blue to look like a crack in the earth and wanted the black brushstrokes on the skyline to look like a city about to fall into the cracks. I wanted to depict a nuclear reactor in trouble hence the mushroom cloud. When it was finished I was really shocked, as were my family and friends. It really was such a departure from my usual work. Especially as I generally try to keep my mind blank and just see what comes when I work. With this painting I had real intention.

I loved the painting though and was excited by the direct my work was taking. It was sold last year via Tooveys annual contemporary art auction. I don’t even know who owns it but I wonder if they are looking at it now in a new light? It’s great that it had sold though, at least no one can doubt that it was painted before the tragic events of Friday the 11th of March.

Because the painting was long since sold, I initially did not make the connection to Japan, especially as you are so overwhelmed by the tragedy unfolding you are not thinking about anything but the horror before you. It was only when reading about the events on the BBC news web site on line and seeing the images of the explosion at the Fukushim Nuclear Plant that I was suddenly reminded of the Evolution painting. I went straight to my computer and looked at it again and was really shocked. I mean I couldn’t believe it. Also I had been reading on the news that the dead were being wrapped in blankets and that rescue teams were marking where they were finding bodies with red flags on sticks. I looked at the body like form on the canvas, that looks like it had been wrapped up and the target on a stick attached to it and felt really odd.  I have even painted the snow coming down. It’s just very strange. I can’t explain it.

As for where this painting is going to take me and it’s image I can’t say but there seems to be a theme running through my work of what may happen to us should we not heed the warnings of this global disaster. Only time will tell hey?

Bottles gone from wall replaced with painting

So I have finally had another display case designed for the bottles in the living room so I can truly get my studio back. It was such a pain having to keep it tidy for clients all the time so I could never just have a painting on the go. I had to work in blocks and so when I didn’t have clients the studio would often sit empty. Crazy. Anyway not it’s all mine once more I am chuffed especially as I have to do so many paintings for the upcoming Artists Open House festival in Brighton. I reapainted thorughout though it won’t stay this pristine for long. I am exhibiting in 3 venues so I had better dust off my brushes and get on with it! I’ll post work as it’s progressing here like I used to on the blog on my old site.