My paintings are about the search for expression of the inner life of a subject through its outward material form. For me, the physical world is a doorway through which one accesses the mysteries of the inner world. it is through the alchemy of the union of these inner and outer realities that the real beauty of a subject is revealed. Painting for me is thus a form of transmutation whereby the hidden face of beauty is revealed from within the raw materials. The technical disciplines are in themselves vehicles of transformation through which the inner beauty is made visible.
 
For me the 'image' of a painting is not something which the artist imposes onto the surface of the canvas but rather the act of painting is in itself a process whereby the real life or 'beauty' of a subject is gradually made visible through the structural build up of the layers of paint and coloured glazes; it's as if the image was always there, hidden with the darkness of matter, and the process of painting is an act of revelation whereby the hidden face of beauty is made visible.
 
My paintings are constructed out of natural and traditional materials using a complex system of glazing whereby the light and shade is generated from with the paint layers. Out of this chiaroscuro colour is then applied in thin layers of glaze. Working in this way, from darkness towards light, the image is gradually revealed, borne out of the union and expressive harmonies of darkness and light.

 

“The sacerdotal tradition, as well as the divine oracles, hides that which is intelligible beneath that which is material, and that which surpasses all beings beneath the veil of these same things; it gives form and likeness to that which has neither form nor likeness, and through the variety and materiality of these emblems it makes multiple and composite that which is excellently single and incorporeal”.

Dionysius the Areopagite