When I was a child I loved to go out and explore the surrounding countryside, where I grew up in the Vale of the White Horse in Oxfordshire. I would find isolated places and build dens secret on my own or with friends. I liked the feeling of being immersed in the landscape.At home, my parents would say that I lived in a world of my own and my school reports would say that I spent a lot of time
When I was a child I loved to go out and explore the surrounding countryside, where I grew up in the Vale of the White Horse in Oxfordshire. I would find isolated places and build dens secret on my own or with friends. I liked the feeling of being immersed in the landscape.At home, my parents would say that I lived in a world of my own and my school reports would say that I spent a lot of time 'dream awake to the windows of the classroom. " But what I was really doing was playing games and visual images in my mind of the world around me. And I constantly drawing in the margins of my exercise books! That's what I did more than anything else as a child: drawing!
I went to study art and design at Oxford Brookes, followed by graphic design at the London College of Printing, and then works of art at the University of Cheltenham Art. Here I was immersed in painting still awake dream, but to make real the dream of form and with the shape and color.
After leaving university I had a number of jobs to keep the wolf from the door, but nothing bothered them that kept me from painting. Winning the Lloyd's Bank Printmaker Young Award in 1983 gave me a wonderful opportunity to work on a commission on the famous Curwen study in London. It also gave me the money to be able to concentrate on my painting for a while. I supplemented this with a part-time teaching.
Since then I have put my work in galleries throughout the UK and Europe and have paintings in public and private collections worldwide. I worked on the committees for a wide range of places, from cruises to hospitals. I have also followed the teaching, which has become an important part of my life gives me a great feeling to see my students in the quest for development and their own ways of doing art.
Ten years ago I moved to a portion of an old watermill Wylye by the river in south Wiltshire. This is my studio and the house where I live with my wife and daughter Kate Millie. It is surrounded by water meadows, forests and downland. Everything you need is here: a perfect home, a family and a beautiful landscape can be completely immersed in me I always like!
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