I don’t have any fixed process or technique. I’m always working in many different ways. It enables me to combine different techniques. I’ll leave myself open to discovering more. This means that with the paintings I have in my studio sometimes something happens and then I realise that it can work on another painting that I have on the go. And so, in a way, a lot of my inspiration comes from my previous work.
Painters have always borrowed from the past but should produce art for the era in which they live. For me, inspiration comes from so many different places and experiences. Over the years I’ve been inspired by the Abstract Expressionist movement, and I love expressive painting. Also, and highly importantly, personal experience counts for a lot – by working in an unguarded expressive way I find that the unexpected can emerge.
Colour and composition are actually rarely specifically deliberate choices. They evolve with the painting. I often work rapidly. Pausing to think for too long is often counter-productive, but I always need to walk away from a painting in order to let the idea gestate, and I then come back to it when it is (or I am) ready to reappraise, and if necessary leave it as it is or continue with it. I always say that a painting is never truly, safely finished until the point when it leaves my studio!