Biography

Painting for me began when I went to boarding school in London at the age of eight as a refuge from what I felt to be a rather hostile environment, and a way of transporting myself back home to Sussex. The older I got the harder it seemed to get, until I realized that I needed to paint what was in front of me to understand how to begin to make a picture.

Meanwhile, I found myself on the science side at school, and appeared to be headed for a career based on that, although my spare time was all in the art school where I was taught and encouraged by Kyffin Williams. When I was eighteen and about to try to get the grades required to go to University, I was in a car accident which I was lucky to survive. This left me with physical problems, and the problem of what to do next. I was encouraged to study architecture as a compromise between my education and my desire to be a painter. This I did for a couple of years at Cambridge.

This didn’t work out as I was spending my time painting, so eventually I went to Regent Street Poly Art school, and it was like coming home, among kindred spirits, and taught by an exceptional range of artists: Francis Hoyland, Leon Kossoff, and Denis Creffield notably. I have never looked back.