The Bigger Picture

Your background includes a Fine Art degree from Ravensbourne and 15 years as a school art teacher. How did making the leap to freelance in 1986 change your artistic trajectory?

Leaving full-time teaching was a massive turning point. It gave me the mental and physical space to really dive deep into adult art education and, crucially, to develop my own painting practice. It allowed me to balance my love for teaching with the freedom to see where my own brush could take me.

You have a legendary history with the East Kent Art Society (EKAS), serving as Secretary for 25 years before becoming Chairman in 2025. How has that community involvement shaped you?

Planting those deep roots in the local creative community completely shaped my journey. I am always exhibiting at our EKAS events, and being heavily involved keeps me connected to the incredible talent we have right here. It’s a vital part of my artistic life.

Since the 1980s, you have maintained a busy exhibition calendar, entering open gallery shows and major exhibitions like the RA Summer Exhibition. What shifted in the early 2000s?

For many years, I showed widely in various established commercial galleries, the RBA, the Pastel Society, and the Society of Landscape Painters. However, by the early 2000s, the growing scale and complexity of my work presented a new challenge. The pieces were getting too big and interconnected for standard gallery slots.

Is that what led you to start staging your own exhibitions and founding MAHL in 2012?

Exactly. To present these large-scale pieces exactly as I envisioned them, I realized I needed to stage exhibitions of my own. That desire for complete control over the layout is what led me to organize solo shows and, ultimately, to founding the MAHL collective. It gives me the perfect platform to present the narrative of my larger work exactly as I want it seen.

You have a deep connection to the East Kent coast, particularly since moving to Thanet in 1980. What is it about this specific environment that keeps inspiring you?

I immediately gravitated towards landscape painting when I moved here. I became completely fascinated by the rarity of our coastal environment, specifically the chalk on the seashore and our local chalk streams. Chalk is incredibly rare on a global scale, yet it is right here on our doorstep. My aim is to present landscapes that feel distinctly contemporary, while still remaining firmly rooted in representational realism. It is a lifelong exploration of the ground beneath our feet.

Your recent work is incredibly immersive, often massive in scale and presented in a modular format. Why do you choose not to sell these specific original canvases?

I firmly believe that landscape paintings need to be of a scale that physically draws the viewer in. To achieve this, I work in a modular way, creating a series of paintings that offer a wide, panoramic exploration of a single landscape. Because the relationship between these pieces is so vital, these original modular paintings are generally not for sale, I want to keep them together as a complete body of work.

If the original large-scale paintings stay together, how can collectors take a piece of that landscape home?

I market high-quality, fine-art giclée prints scanned directly from the canvases, alongside greeting cards. The clever part is that the prints are specifically sized so that buyers can arrange them together on their own walls in the exact same modular way as the original paintings.

Your reference material relies heavily on a mix of photography and traditional observation. How do these elements come together in the studio?

Everything begins out in the elements. I gather my raw material by making montages of my own photographs, which I combine with detailed notes and sketches done right there on-site. Once I am back in the studio, the technology gets put aside. The entire composition is transferred and developed onto the canvas using hand and eye alone. It’s a very meditative, traditional process of translation from the raw landscape to the final canvas.

While you are known for your oils, pastels, and landscapes, you also have a few surprises up your sleeve for the future. What else is running through your practice right now?

Oil painting will always be my first choice because I love its rich traditions, its massive capacity for experimentation, and its suitability for going big. I also love working in soft pastel. But lately, I’ve felt a strong pull back toward figurative painting and portraiture, which has always been an intermittent thread throughout my life. I also have a burning ambition to return to printmaking, a medium I have neglected for far too long.

As a founding member of MAHL back in 2012, how does it feel to return to The Horsebridge 14 years after the collective's very first show?

It is incredibly rewarding. When we started MAHL, it was about creating a platform to showcase our work exactly how we wanted. Coming back to The Horsebridge during the energy of the Oyster Festival feels like a celebration of longevity. Seeing how the collective has grown, blending founding energy with brilliant newer faces like Alison and Peter, proves that the East Kent art scene is thriving. It’s about keeping the content fresh while staying true to our origins.