At university, it was essential to my classmates to look the part. “Image” was everything to them. None of them ever became artists. Today, many people say I look like an artist. It’s not on purpose. Painting has become a part of me, it rubs off on one, I am always covered in paint and so is everything I own, I smell like paint, I even know the taste of each colour.

I was created to become an artist, I am merely an instrument in God’s hand, here to interpret His creation through my work.

Every painting I create reflects my emotions. Looking at completed works, I am transported back in time to the feelings I was experiencing when painting them. They are a visual diary of my life. A painting that does not ask a question is just a picture. Pictures frustrate and irritate me, my whole being rebels against them!

Years ago after many successful sell-out solo exhibitions at universities, museums and major art galleries, I started working on what would be a life-defining exhibition. I spent many years putting everything into creating these new works, fifty-one in total. They were the best works I had ever produced. But then. At the gallery where they were being framed they disappeared — all of them!

The loss snapped me like a twig. I withdrew from the public arena becoming a recluse on a farm somewhere in the North West for many years. To preserve my sanity and probably save my life, my brain managed to block out the theft. Four years later the enormity of the loss hit me. It changed my life and the direction of my art forever.

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