Art 4 Petes Sake
I got into painting after a teenage heartbreak. I didn’t know what to do with all the newfound time and emotions on my hands. So on a whim, I bought some canvases and paints from a shop that was having a sale. The distraction in colours and bringing life to a canvas seeded something in me. But it wasn’t until after graduating from a course in Animation and realising I didn’t want a life oriented around a computer, that painting found its way back into my world.
A few years later I found myself living and painting in a studio in Barcelona. I was picked up by a gallery and suddenly saw artworks I had been failing to sell on the streets being sold across seas to the Hollywood Hills and beyond.
I know find myself living a quieter life and painting in a small village in the countryside of central Portugal with my dog, Buddy Barka.
I favour the medium of acrylics for its ability to layer quickly and keep up with spontaneous decisions.
I feel colour is something you respond to intuitively, like music. It becomes a landline to the place where ideas live, or something more divine. All things are spiritual before they are physical, and painting bridges these worlds for me. I’m aware trying to explain may sound ridiculous to some, but being alone in a room with a blank canvas, and in a very short period of time something can be looking back at you, it’s like magic to me, you create something from nothing. Like rain on a wall or mist through a valley, it’s never the same way twice and I’m in love with this.
Painting truly makes me smile. X
