1998-2000 Artist Statement (related to Pictograph Gallery and Gallery One exhibitions)
I had a fortunate childhood, growing up on the edge of the Green Belt around London and so having the benefit of being close to nature and the countryside and at the same time the easy access (via the Underground ) to all the cultural advantages of the great city.
My mother took her responsibilities seriously and so regularly, during school vacations, we visited the Kensington museums, the British Museum, the National and Tate Galleries as well as the Zoo, the ballet and theatre (usually to see the annual Christmas Pantomime and Swan Lake). I can reminisce at length about these trips as well as the long summers playing “over the fields” and knowing well all the trees and flowers and birds and animals that were so much a part of my home landscape.
But one visit, to the National Gallery, I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday I was thirteen years old and for the first time I really saw a painting. I had been there before and must have walked past it many times. Before that day I had looked at pictures for the stories they told me: mythical allegories, bible stories or Arthurian legends.
The painting I saw was “Steamer approaching a Harbour in a Snowstorm” by J.M.W.Turner. It is not very big, a surface of swirling strokes of paint, predominantly greys and off-whites. It felt as if my eyes had been peeled clean and were really working. It was an experience of clarity and vision as if up to that time my eyes had merely been used to avoid bumping into things. It was the first time I had truly seen a painting and as I was standing there I thought: “That’s a good way to spend a life – that’s what I’m going to do”. At that moment I became a painter.
When it comes right down to it, after all the intellectual justifications, the cultural reflections, the educated apologias, I am always left with the revelation that I had at thirteen. I have never found anything better to do or to be. This sense of purpose has sustained me through the ups and downs of an eventful life and the older I get, the more I seem to realize that it is sufficient to continue to live by.
I had a fortunate childhood, growing up on the edge of the Green Belt around London and so having the benefit of being close to nature and the countryside and at the same time the easy access (via the Underground ) to all the cultural advantages of the great city.
My mother took her responsibilities seriously and so regularly, during school vacations, we visited the Kensington museums, the British Museum, the National and Tate Galleries as well as the Zoo, the ballet and theatre (usually to see the annual Christmas Pantomime and Swan Lake). I can reminisce at length about these trips as well as the long summers playing “over the fields” and knowing well all the trees and flowers and birds and animals that were so much a part of my home landscape.
But one visit, to the National Gallery, I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday I was thirteen years old and for the first time I really saw a painting. I had been there before and must have walked past it many times. Before that day I had looked at pictures for the stories they told me: mythical allegories, bible stories or Arthurian legends.
The painting I saw was “Steamer approaching a Harbour in a Snowstorm” by J.M.W.Turner. It is not very big, a surface of swirling strokes of paint, predominantly greys and off-whites. It felt as if my eyes had been peeled clean and were really working. It was an experience of clarity and vision as if up to that time my eyes had merely been used to avoid bumping into things. It was the first time I had truly seen a painting and as I was standing there I thought: “That’s a good way to spend a life – that’s what I’m going to do”. At that moment I became a painter.
When it comes right down to it, after all the intellectual justifications, the cultural reflections, the educated apologias, I am always left with the revelation that I had at thirteen. I have never found anything better to do or to be. This sense of purpose has sustained me through the ups and downs of an eventful life and the older I get, the more I seem to realize that it is sufficient to continue to live by.