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Mood and light are increasingly important motivators for me. I want the viewer to be drawn into a painting - to understand how it would feel to be there inside the view. What is the season, the weather, the time of day? How does the light fall? Although my work is representational, and often quite detailed, it is these more ephemeral things that I want to convey.
I am also hugely inspired by the natural world. Although I love to visit historic cities and buildings, I am most at home in the world of mountains, lakes, coastline, forests and countryside. When I see a beautiful view I want to capture it - not in a picture-postcard way, but in the hope that some of my wonder might make it onto the paper or canvas.
Trees have featured significantly in my work recently. I have always loved the way the low sunlight shows up the silhouettes of bare trees in the winter and this has resulted in a series of sunset paintings. Deep forests, with occasional shafts of sunlight or sky, have also been a particular inspiration and I continue to paint the magical, untouched, beech forests of New Zealand.
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