 I had been living with dialysis for three years or so, and the new kidney felt like a reprieve, a new gift of life. I felt alive again and I guess that has had an effect on my use of colour. |
| Painting is seen as picture making, the making of an art object, something that can stand on its own. |
| You could always go on changing things but there comes a time when you have to decide to stop. |
| As a kid I quite fancied the romantic, Bohemian idea of being an artist. I expect I thought I could escape from the difficulties of maths and spelling. Maybe I thought I would avoid the judgement of the establishment. |
| I think most people see drawing as subservient to the subject, a sort of meditation, a studying, a searching observation, in my case, for its own sake. |
| I have never subscribed to the Dirty Pallet school of painting. |
| I used to paint landscapes without any people in them but now I paint people who happen to be in a particular place. They might be outside a pub, or on a beach or in a studio. They might have clothes on or they might not. |
| I felt the need to get back to painting and I thought the best way was to start drawing, so I enrolled in a life drawing class. I soon discovered that people made very interesting subjects and I am still surprised that I had never discovered it before. |
| I never know what it's going to look like. Wouldn't be much point in painting if I already knew the outcome. I have a subject in front of me and I start flooding colour and making marks, I don't know, it's improvisation isn't it? |
| When I look at some of my old work, the pieces I find most interesting are the ones with people in them. |
| I tried to learn the violin for a while. |
| I've had to do all kinds of jobs to pay the rent. I've even worked in a Cornish tin mine. |
| I have to experiment with methods and I'm trying to find an authentic way of making an equivalent of the living, breathing person within the limits of a single picture. |
