My footprint is faint and I recycle vigorously, eternally eclectic, always harvesting,

scavenging ideas and materials. These laser cut s/steel panels were discovered

at a scrap metal yard in Sun Valley, while buying an aircraft wing for an awning.

The W & P series comprises 23" x 23" stainless steel panels with grounds perforated

for stenciling computer circuit diagrams. The surfaces are textured to receive various

mixed media applied via stencil, spray, spatula and brush, casein, egg tempera,

acrylic and oil. Autobiographical in nature, they are realized by a personal visual

vocabulary. Perhaps a vintage outboard motor, a simple machine, symbol to

express achievement for good or bad. Water too is interpreted, either as a physical

means of control, or as rivers and lakes of my childhood. Now suffering from

extraction, in places they are still able to support a small boat, but with all the

mysterious connotations of the dark heart of the ocean. Educated in England,

I studied mural painting at the Central School, Holborn, later attaining an MA from

Nottingham entitled the Social and Political Influences in Art. They were formative

years, but now there is no wish to evangelize in my work; indeed, my views change,

but I do hope to encourage the viewer to revisit and consider. The series moves

through various stylistic moods. Formalist, economical structured suggestions of

buildings and simple perspectival scapes develop to more minimalist images.

Further, the work becomes less analytical, hinting at whimsy, at times with a slightly

bitter aftertaste; other times accepting the found object, with little more intervention

than its presentation. Some allusions are freely used, as in the DWP piece

(see their building on Lincoln Boulevard, Venice)- Amold Boecklin's painting

Island of the Dead is a conscious reference to this work. Malevich, too, is an influence

in some works, for instance Basilica. In the painting Boatbuilder, redundant books

share ideas with the rocks and fabrics of Giotto's Life of St Frances series; the allusions

are multifarious. An ongoing dialogue shared, from the cave paintings in Lascaux to

today's urban art.          

DE.'10