'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.'
- Albert Einstein

I am intrigued by our relationship with that which we call the natural world.  Of course it would be foolish to try and imitate, or even improve nature.  Instead my fascination with natural environments, the beautiful, sublime and picturesque, is filtered through a heady dose of modern culture, unattainable dreams and the maladie du siecle.  I endeavour to recapture pixelated memories distorted by time and attempt to give physical form to that which pours forth from the point where my imagination and memory collide.

My work is primitive.  It is turbulence, chaos, conflict and violent elegance whilst at once it is peace and oneness.  It is the strange, the cruel and unusual, the grotesque, the mysterious, the supernatural, moonlight, falling water, mountains and the darkness.  It is the land beyond the wall, the Theatre of Dreams, Neverland, Scarlett Thomas’ Mindspace and the space between us.  It is also the pursuit of originality, concern with the fleeting present, desire to live in the moment, the past and the future, a sense of timelessness, the thoughtful contemplation of the unknown.  It is nostalgia, it is reverie, it is intoxicating dreams, it is sweet melancholy, solitude, the sufferings of exile, the sense of alienation and normlessness, roaming in remote places, especially in the North.  It is also self torture, self annihilation and suicide.  It is the sadness of unfulfilled expectations.  It is the primeval, the unsophisticated, the bosom of nature, green fields, wind chimes, bubbling brooks, the infinite midnight blue sky.  No less, however, is it the desire to dress up, blue hair, urban outfits, throbbing sub bass, neon plastic, faery lights, a dedication to the following of fashion.   It is wild exhibitionism, eccentricity and the hedonistic pursuit of life.  It is both in the world and of the world.

I yearn to be able to communicate my limitless sensations through the finite means of the material world. I am trying to catch the uncatchable and such attempts to give finite form to the ethereal, to stop the unceasing flow, will inevitably result in unreality. I realise that I will only ever be able to catch a glimpse of that which I seek for once it has been given physical form it becomes real, detached from it's source.

I could never expect to be able to faithfully recreate my own experiences, or more importantly my emotions of those experiences, for the spectator and so instead I try to present them with something which will give them a lasting memory to take away with them. I hope that my work will give the viewer a glimpse of nature, of the forms that provided the catalyst for the work, whist at the same time firing their imagination.

January 2009