Patterns have always intrigued the me.
Not perfectly formal, geometric patterns but those occurring in nature that are variations on a theme.

Looking closely at the forms of rocks, these occur in the bedrock, causing the fault lines that break the mass into smaller sections, the boulders into pebbles. In each piece of stone the patterns are there, deciding form and marking the characteristics: striation, veining, crystalline structures. Then weather works on the structure of the rock, water and wind gradually breaking it down.

Since my earliest memories granite is the rock that has most inspired me, both in my native Cornwall and traveling throughout the world, in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada of California, in the giant boulders along the coast of Wilson’s Promontory in Victoria, Australia. Having returned to Penwith, the far west of Cornwall, the shoreline sculpted and polished by waves has formed the subject of a whole body of work.


Technique

Rather than use a traditional painting technique I have increased the visual vocabulary for these paintings by using collage within the artwork.

Beginning with a white canvas or board, I create an under-painting in acrylics, deciding the basic composition, tonal qualities and colours. I then prepare various textured, translucent papers, colouring and patterning them. Layers are then built up on the canvas of papers and painting, expressing the different qualities of rock, sand and water.

Clearly I have a love of process, of stretching the medium in different directions, enquiring into possibilities.