When starting a painting I have no preconception of what it is going to look like beyond using the structure of a composition. Each work develops through a dialogue between the painting and myself.

I love colour, to draw with paint, making marks with brushes, painting knives, pieces of card, sponges and anything that might be at hand to serve the purpose. Some marks are more definitive whilst others are searching, exploring. My eye searches for what I determine to be significant points in the view, whether landscape, figure or still life.

Art is a language - how I look and read the information before me is often broken down and reconstructed using marks, shape, surface and colour – a form of vocabulary that develops into visual compositions. The resulting work can be representational and/or abstract, often somewhere in between. I enjoy using media and processes, both individually and in combination, embracing the happy accidents, along with the less successful outcomes. It is important to respond equally to the subject and to the work as it evolves. 

I graduated from Winchester School of Art, in 1983, where I studied Fine Art under the guidance of the Gillian Ayres and Clyde Hopkins. The love of painting instilled in me then has remained with me and grown over time. Prior to this, I spent a year on the Art Foundation at Cheltenham College of Art and Design, where I rediscovered the joy of drawing, like so many, after school education. Many of the techniques learnt from Terry Murphy and the late Mick Maslen, I have since used in my own life drawing classes. ​

Having taught Art to students for 24 years, mostly at Cheltenham Ladies' College, I have returned to the studio to explore and share my own way of interpreting aspects of the world.

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I am available for tutoring and mentoring.