my primary concerns include materiality – colour, pigment, mark and all things painterly – mood or narrative, and finally, subject matter.

Subject matter is based on personal obsessions (what artist does not visit and revisit certain subjects). For me, initially it was about the struggle of the individual to find balance, more recently concerns about the natural world, and the necessity for humankind to achieve balance on planet Earth.

Subject is important because it is what starts the piece and drives the painting.

I like when people ‘get’ a little of what the work is about, but understanding in a rational way is not a prerequisite to appreciation.

One can love a piece of music without knowing the inspiration, stimulus, history and structure, or understanding the harmonies, dissonances, pitch relationships etc.

The whole process by which a painting comes into being is not without history, context, conscious and subconscious thought, problem solving and finally, resolution.

In the end, what seduces is how the subject is handled, and that seduction can happen in numerous ways, and can be very different for each individual viewer.