|
 I've
been an artist since 1983 and in that time I have produced 100's
of images from basic web graphics to New age cd and book covers, my
photography work has also been published in many U.K magazines. While
I'm not one for dwelling on the past, I know many find such things of
interest. I have change a great deal in the past 42 years. As a child
I was a shy loner full of dreams, as a young man I was an unfocused
fool trapped by my own mind. I spent much of my time enchanted by the
material world and the superficiality of beauty rapped around the
female form. Now a middle age man I’m on a Spiritual mission of self
discovery and empowerment through my art. I have learned that even
through this less than perfect past, I have created this person who
now seeks to break down the many disempowering perceptions in life. It
is my hope that in doing so others may find a level of mental freedom
and comfort in these ideas which are not new but are rarely explored
or talked about in our daily lives. Below is a very (very) brief
history of my past. I touch on just a few key points in my life which
have change my path and helped shape me.
I was born in 1966 in the borough
of Middlesex, England
and for the first 10 years of my life I was a only child. My parents
were attentive and loving, it was not until I went to school I began
to realize what a cruel and hateful world some choose to live in. I
have always been blessed with unique and honed imagination so I
dreamed much of my school time away. As a teenager I learned to become
a playground jester, saving me from break-time beatings which were so
often handed out by those that enjoy negativity. It would be true to
say I dislike school with a passion but now I understand it help shape
the person I am today. Art, my favourite subject, was a place of deep
frustration in those days as I was never able to express myself,
constantly tied down by the need to learn over the desire to create. I
still to this day believe that artists learn best by doing what they
want not being forced to create things they can not identify with.
I've been drawing / painting for as long as I
can remember, but I was around 21 that it became a passion. At that
time I discovered my then favourite media - acrylics. Like everything
I do I started painting in my own style with very little regard to
rules and convention. During the years that followed, I poured all my
energy into painting holding a few local exhibitions in libraries and
alike.
1993 I got married and moved to America. Once
there I toyed with various art forms, and discovered the realm of
computers, I soon began to realize their massive potential. I brought
my first PC in Bellevue (Washington) and my life change forever. I
joined the Seattle Art's Institute in the same year studying
photography and computer graphics. While it did teach me a greater
understanding of computers and graphic programs, my hunger once again
for creativity was not fed.
4 years later I returned to live in the UK, I
soon became a full time starving artist and photographer. I began to
focused more and more on photography and soon found myself in glamour,
shooting wannabe models for freelance work and an agency. It was fun
and exciting helping young women who were seeking to make it big in a
'glamorous' industry but after a while I became disillusioned. It
frustrated me by how most of the publications and some photographers
tagged the women as brainless commodities. I guess in all big
industries people are always the least important thing, used as
stepping stones on the way to empty financial gain. I like many of the
women I was naïve to think otherwise. People will always perceive the
life of glamour model or photographer in a certain way the truth is
far more boring I can assure you. I met some wonderful women and with
help from then I was able to created some beautiful and glamorous
photos.
I passionately enjoy
what I do nowadays, and the fact it has enabled me to meet so
many interesting people. My own belief structure is nonconformist not
for me the fixed path of organized religion or spirituality. While I
understand the good it does, and agree with many of the positive
aspects which it teaches, I shudder at the pain fear and separation it
has dealt the human race. I can not understand why those who worships
such perfect and enlightened beings, put onto them such human egos and
weakness, they Proclaim god is love, then in the same breath tell how
he will send you to hell if he is not pleased. I must confess In my
current human form I can not grasp the perfection or vastness of the
driving power behind all of life, How it links everything and is
everything, but one thing god if we wish to call it that has never
been is a old man with a beard prone to fits of rage. I hope that one
day all will come to see that life is so much more amazing than our
current small human minds can ever comprehend. So I say thank you for
being you and reading this
Namaste....
I have touched on the reason for my art on the opening page but the
question I can see that gnaws at most of the people that stand viewing
my work is: - How is it done? I find that such a modern trait. I mean
does it really matter how an image is created? Isn’t all the magic
gone once the trick is told? Is that not the reason the world has lost
all it’s wonder for many because we wanted to know all the answers and
now wished we didn’t...Once we have drained the loch dry and found no
monster have we really made our world a better place? Or just a little
colder? The truth is out there, but once you know it what then? …I’m
not stalling here I can tell you how the images are physically created
but one thing I can’t tell you is how the images really come to me and
I hope I never will…
Look away now to keep the mystery …..
95% of my works are initially created from photographs I have taken of
the natural world…trees, plants, rocks skies even non organic objects
such as buildings motorbikes, metals and industrial work spaces are
used. I then digitally fused these together until an image comes
through that resonates for me - this can be a very lengthy and dynamic
process I also use a digital paint program to produce some of the
images for example Seed of Enlightenment is created this way. I
primarily use a program call Adobe Photoshop to help me create these
images. I have been using this program on and off since 1993. Please
let me clarify something here for those that know nothing of digital
art, these images are not created by cooking up some formula that the
computer spits out as a finished image. This work should never
be confused with fractal art. The computer program simply mimic’s the
tools that would be found in both a pre-digital artist and
photographers studio, the creative process is still very much the
domain of the artist hence why like myself many once traditional
artist have stepped into the digital age.
I personally print
and mount all my images. Yes I even spend hours cutting out images and
putting together to create those key ring fobs and fridge magnets that
proven so popular.
While I feel my work is very individual, I would site the artworks of
Rothko, Salvador Dali, Hieronymus Bosch, and HR Giger as inspirations. |
