What would Europe be without its philosophy? Western philosophy has multiplied ideas, with a continuous renewal of its lines of thought : idealism, pragmatism, existentialism, metaphysics… European philosophy has brought its best ideas to politics, ethics, art, mathematics, physics…
On the eve of Brexit I chose to pay my tribute to this European patrimony by painting distressed portraits of a number of prominent European philosophers. The series is still ongoing…
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection - Holland)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (My Collection)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (My Collection)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection - UK)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
What would Europe be without its philosophy? Western philosophy has multiplied ideas, with a continuous renewal of its lines of thought : idealism, pragmatism, existentialism, metaphysics… European philosophy has brought its best ideas to politics, ethics, art, mathematics, physics…
On the eve of Brexit I chose to pay my tribute to this European patrimony by painting distressed portraits of a number of prominent European philosophers. The series is still ongoing…
Oil on Linen 71x61cm (Private Collection - USA)
Oil on Canvas 61x61cm (Private Collection)
Oil on Canvas 61x61cm (Private Collection - USA)
Oil on Linen 61x61cm (Available)
Oil on Canvas 70x70cm (Private Collection - London)
Oil on Canvas 120x100cm (Private Collection)
Gilt and Black Frame 140x120x10cm
Oil on Canvas 50x40cm (Private Collection)
Gilt and Black Frame 60x50cm
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Available for Sale)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Private Collection - USA)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Available)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Available)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Private Collection - Holland)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Private Collection - USA)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Private Collection)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Private Collection)
Oil on Linen 35x30cm (Private Collection)
What would Europe be without its philosophy? Western philosophy has multiplied ideas, with a continuous renewal of its lines of thought : idealism, pragmatism, existentialism, metaphysics… European philosophy has brought its best ideas to politics, ethics, art, mathematics, physics…
On the eve of Brexit I chose to pay my tribute to this European patrimony by painting distressed portraits of a number of prominent European philosophers. The series is still ongoing…
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Oil on Canvas 140x120cm (Available for Sale)
(Available for Sale)
Oil on Linen 66x56cm (Private Collection - USA)
Simone Weil 1909-1943
Oil on Canvas 200x170 cm (Available for Sale)
Émilie du Châtelet 1706-1749
Oil on Canvas 140x100cm (Available for Sale)
Oil on Canvas 120x120 cm (Private Collection - Brunei)
Oil on Canvas 80x80 cm (Private Collection)
(Available for Sale)
Oil on Linen 71x61 cm (Available for Sale)
Oil on Linen 71x61 cm (Available for Sale)
Oil on Linen 85x70cm (Available for Sale)
Simone de Beauvoir 1908-1986
Oil on Canvas 85x70cm (Available for Sale)
Albert Camus 1913-1960
Oil on Canvas 85x70 cm (Available for Sale)
Harriet Martineau 1802-1876
Oil on Canvas 140x120 cm (Available for Sale)
Like the painter the work of a poet is essentially one of communication just that the language and medium is different. Also poets can either express ideas in a literal sense or metaphorically. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and periods. Throughout each civilization and language, poets have used various styles that have changed through the course of literary history, resulting in a history of poets as diverse as the literature they have produced.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Oil on Linen 61x61cm (Available for Sale)
To hatch a crow, a black rainbow.
Oil on Canvas 35x30cm. (Available)
Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.
Oil on Linen 71x61cm (Available for Sale)
“Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fantasy into smiling…”
Oil on Canvas 35x30cm. (Private Collection- UK)
There’s a Bluebird in my Heart….
Oil on Canvas 35x30cm. (Private Collection - USA)
My witness is the empty sky.
Oil on Canvas 35x30cm. (Available)
I turned silences and nights into words…
Oil on Linen 35x35cm (Available for Sale)
Youth was ever severe …
Oil on Linen 35x35cm (Available for Sale)
What I am laying before you is my whole soul…
Oil on Linen 35x35cm (Available for Sale)
Beauty is truth, truth beauty
Oil on Linen 35x30cm. (Available)
Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.
Oil on Linen 35x30cm. (Available)
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Oil on Linen 35x30cm. (Available)
He holds him with his glittering eye…
Oil on Linen 71x61cm (Available for Sale)
…although they were thinner than the thinnest vapour…
Oil on Linen 71x61cm (Private Collection - USA)
They ride the Roads with Souls of Patent Leather.
Oil on Linen 35x35cm (Private Collection - UK)
I have recently painted 60 Oil sketches of Women poets to accompany a Cento (A Collage Poem) composed of lines from their poetry.
In this form of poetry, lines are "lifted" from other sources and "woven" together to create a new, whole poem that stands on its own.
Writing a cento is a kind of an extension of reading, a way to prolong the pleasure of lines and quotations as a souvenir of the reading experience. It becomes a mosaic of treasured lines that may provoke and or amuse the reader in their new context.
Each portrait is 25x23cm on prepared paper and is titled to accompany a Collage Poem composed of lines from their poetry.
Portrait of Edna St. Vincent Millay Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available)
Portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available) .
Portrait of Elinor Wylie. Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available)
Portrait of Gertrude Stein. Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available)
Portrait of Emma Lazarus. Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available)
Portrait of Emily Dickinson. Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available)
Portrait of Elizabeth Bishop. Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available)
Portrait of Wislawa Symborska. Oil on Paper 25x23cm (Available)
I start by researching my chosen poet and then working from appropriated images I paint a number of experimental studies. I use these to create distance from the source image when I paint my version of the portrait. I like to focus on one particular line from their work as I paint and aim to rebuild their aura, brushstroke by brushstroke, making them ‘alive’ again through depth, colour, texture and light. I use the abstract marks to intrude and distress the figurative elements to try and articulate the emotional response I have towards their work. They give up their solid separate existence, becoming dematerialised and abstracted; not a copy of the individual’s original portrait but a deepening of meaning through the creative reworking of existing images to bring the essence of their ideas to a contemporary audience.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection - UK)
There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt.
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
April is the cruelest month…
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Oil on Paper 53x53cm (Available)
…From the blind tongueless warders of the dead…
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you…
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
These Oil Sketches on Paper Illustrating Ovid’s Metamorphoses are the starting point for the larger paintings. They provide a distance from the source photographs of existing historical paintings, sculpture and prints dealing with the same subject and as a test bed for experimentation.
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection - UK)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection - UK)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection - UK)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection - Germany)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Available)
I continue to experiment with painterly interventions with the figure; taking extant historical paintings, sculpture and prints as a starting point my aim is to deconstruct and abstract the original imagery searching for a fusion between realism and abstraction that retains the subject's identity while at the same time creating an image with contemporary relevance (many of the myths are creation/moral messages that could be tied to current concerns over society and the environment).
Oil on Linen 96x81cm (Private Collection - UK)
Oil on Canvas 140x100cm (Available)
Oil on Linen 61x61cm (Available for Sale)
Oil on Linen 70x60cm (Available)
Oil on Linen 61x61cm (Available)
Oil on Linen 61x61cm (Available)
Oil on Panel 45x35 (Available)
Oil on Linen 71x61 cm (Available)
Oil on Canvas 70x60cm (Available)
Oil on Canvas 125x100cm (My Collection)
Oil on Canvas 140x120cm (Available)
Oil on Linen 70x60cm (Available)
A trial of a motion video of my sketch of Jean Cocteau.
