EAST LONDON

                                  "Mixing conventional perspective with a native presentation creates a tension within the picture that                                           makes the painting active. The deliberate flattening of the perspective creates a more interactive experience. It is a quality found in Art Brut and naive art: an aspect of these forms in art that I find particularly interesting and stimulating. Painting becomes a balancing act between allowing the image to dictate its own destiny; retaining its spontaneity and applying a form of artistic censorship to establish aesthetic artistic qualities without diluting the essential power. This series of pictures is part of an ongoing project inspired by locations within walking distance of my Shoreditch studio. However, they are not, or intended to be, topographical. they are more a representation of a relationship, physical and imagined, present and past. A city that is more than simply a series of places identifiable on a map. Rather one that is the result of a continually changing urban living experience. The subjects of this city are not the obvious landmarks but the basic materials from which the city is constructed, together with echoes from the past. A city that is constantly changing. The night city a different place to the day city. A city that bares the scars of past conflicts; terrace houses deprived of their neighbours by bomb damage are provided wooden corsets still in evidence today. The ghosts of past artime search light signalled by passing car headlights. Roofless churches have only pigeons for congregation. Recent history can be tracked in the tarmacadam scars on the road surfaces created by the need for new cable and drainage installations making a crochet pattern throughout the city. Graffiti expresses humour, politics and territorial possessiveness. 

ARTIST STATEMENT