"In early memory ...music
Was ringing 'round my nursery door"*

My earliest memories are made up of a cocktail of music and art. The two have been inextricably linked ever since.

The first song that I can recall hearing was 'Buffalo Soldier' by Bob Marley, released in '76, the year that I was born.

As a child I would spend my days drawing and listening to music. I was always fascinated by the past and would take references from history books.
I had a teacher in primary school who fueled the link of working to music. In her class she would play classical compositions and ask us to draw to the music, expressing whatever images we saw within the sounds.

To this day, that memory abides and makes up much of my working practice. I still take pictures from sounds.

When I paint, I don't start out with any set plans. I pick up pieces subconsciously or take them from the last image worked as a way of breaking the blankness. The use of repeated imagery links each painting to the past.

The busy nature that my work has, is an expression of the fast paced condensed living that I see around me. The symbols that I use come from primitive and ancient high cultures. My main inspiration is taken from 'Rock Art' by indigenous peoples from around the world as it is free flowing, pure and 'touches my primal buttons'.

My use of figures with 'arms raised' comes from a vision that I once had when I was living in Arizona. It was during a drive through the sculptured desert looking at the time-rendered landscape littered with cacti.
They appeared to me as being human in form, with arms raised, basking in the sunshine and celebrating life under the sun that fell upon them in what looked at first to be a barren wilderness. In some way they were the souls of many collected and captured together without feet to move, yet positioned in a paradise.

I feel that painting is like dancing, in that it is natural. There are no wrong steps, and when it flows it is possible to dance across the canvas to a universal beat and rhythm which we all hold within.

"These are the roots of the rhythm
And the roots of the remain" *

* Quotes taken from the song 'Under African Skies' by Paul Simon, from the album 'Graceland'