About

I came to art and visual communication the long way round. Before working as an artist, I spent a number of years in professional kitchens, followed by a career in marketing. Art had always been something I wanted to pursue seriously, but for a long time I didn’t quite know where to begin.

That changed when I left the UK for Switzerland in 2018. Finding myself considerably closer to Florence than I had been before, I decided to take the opportunity to study traditional realist painting at the Angel Academy of Art. I spent a year and a half there developing the drawing, painting and observational skills that continue to underpin my work today.

From painting to visual storytelling

For several years after Florence, oil painting was almost my entire focus. I concentrated on figurative and narrative work, developing paintings for exhibition and pursuing the traditional gallery route.

Painting remains at the heart of what I do, but over time I realised that many of the things that interested me about painting weren’t really specific to paint at all.

I am interested in people, observation, storytelling and ideas – and in finding the visual language that communicates those things most effectively.

Sometimes that means an oil painting that takes months to produce. Sometimes it means a pen-and-ink cartoon that needs to communicate an idea almost immediately. It might become an illustration, a comic strip or a piece of editorial work. Increasingly, I am also experimenting with what happens when those ideas are allowed to move through motion graphics and film.

The medium changes, but much of the thinking behind it remains the same.

Painting and drawing

My training is rooted in traditional drawing and realist oil painting. I am particularly interested in figurative and narrative work: using people, objects, gesture, composition and light to suggest something beyond their immediate appearance.

I enjoy work that rewards looking. A painting might begin with an observation about a person, an interaction between figures or an object that suggests something beyond its practical purpose. At other times, the starting point can simply be the visual impression itself – a particular arrangement of shapes, a quality of light or something that I want to understand better through drawing or painting.

That grounding in observation continues to influence everything else I make.

Illustration, cartoons and editorial work

Alongside my painting, I produce pen-and-ink illustrations, editorial cartoons and comic strips.

These allow me to approach ideas rather differently. Where a painting can develop slowly and accumulate meaning, a cartoon often needs to strip an idea back until it communicates almost immediately. Humour, exaggeration, visual metaphor and sequencing all offer possibilities that are quite different from those available in a single oil painting.

I find the movement between those two approaches particularly interesting.

I am continuing to develop this side of my work and am particularly interested in editorial illustration, publishing, cartooning and commercial projects where drawing can be used to explain, entertain or communicate an idea.

Writing

Writing has gradually become another part of my practice. I write articles and essays about art, creativity and the things I encounter while working, as well as using writing to develop ideas for visual work.

The relationship works in both directions. Sometimes an idea begins as a few paragraphs before becoming an image; at other times a drawing leads me towards something I want to explore in writing.

You can find my longer-form writing on Substack here.

Moving image

More recently, I have begun extending some of these interests into motion graphics and filmmaking.

These are developing areas of my work rather than the foundation of my practice, but they offer another way of exploring many of the things that already interest me in painting and illustration: composition, light, timing, narrative and visual communication.

I am particularly interested in the places where these disciplines overlap – where drawing can become animation, an illustration can develop into a sequence, or image, text, movement and sound can work together to communicate an idea.

Working together

I work from my studio in Switzerland, where I continue to develop my own work alongside commissions, teaching and collaborative projects.

My background may be rooted in traditional painting, but I am interested in applying those skills much more broadly. That might mean an original painting or drawing, an illustration, editorial or cartooning work, or a project that crosses several disciplines.

If you have an idea and think something I do might be useful, please get in touch. I’d be very happy to have a conversation.