Paintings

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Balthus the French painter said “painting is a language that cannot be replaced by another language. I don’t know what to say about what I paint really.”

Writing about ones work is difficult and often I think superfluous. You have said what you need to say in paint.

However, I know that a little bit of information can lead the viewer into a work. Save it to say, I am mostly interested in painting people - figurative paintings - especially when I see them fully alive and in a classic New Zealand setting like being buffeted by the surf on a wild west coast beach, or a girl luxuriating in the swish of a new ball dress. Nudes untrammelled by the restraint of clothing or drifting silently and weightlessly under water.

It is the water too that interests me - water appears often in my work with its any layers of colour and tone, reflection and transparency and overtones of the subconscious.

One day I may paint landscapes, but as yet I can’t see them, as I would like for one reason or another. I paint big gestural flowers like amaryllis and lilies. Initially reacting to the impact of the colour and their personality they often end up as a vehicle for something quite other.

My paintings are big and gestural. Historically they were much more about colour and movement and rolled through many transmogrifications before they were finished. Now they have more limited palette with more tonal considerations and seem to be more restrained, hopefully still gestural because it’s the energy of a subject that interests me, whether it is contained and quiet or expressive and wild.

I paint in oils and use many different mediums with the oils, like archival gel and wax. They are mostly works on canvas.