DreiHäuser. June 2008. Oil on Canvas

The paintings I build up are about hacking space, exploring bits and parts in a cut and paste logic that gives freedom to investigate many ways of painting. Taking a form such as oil landscape painting inevitably refers to the history of painting. For me this is a dichotomy of free space and restriction that I enjoy playing with.

Strip. Oil on canvas. 120x150cm. 2005

Landscape projects our inner thoughts, desires, hopes and dreams as much as the tragedies and struggles we have encountered. The landscapes I depict are taken from spaces past through or lived in and in some way experienced directly by me. They are selected through the lens and transported into the studio to pass through another selection process.

The painting process is never a direct one and takes me along avenues I cannot always predict. Sometimes a composition works and sometimes it doesn’t, it all relates to where the pieces go, what colour goes next to which and that is an investigation that can never end for me.

Colour language, composition and subject are equally important to me. My view is that colour is a complex and misunderstood element often stuck in clichéd interpretations. Meaning repeated over and over, simplifying and limiting colour’s ability of a broad and compelling voice. Yves Klein liberated pure colour, rejecting form saying that form could only hold colour captive like bars in a prison cell. In a sense I agree with this, however, I believe it’s possible to manipulate assumptions of colour through form.

Grey Building (Japan). Oil on Canvas. 2006