About me
I'm from Somerset originally, which apparently you can tell when you talk to me, the accent gets thicker when I cross the county border or cider is involved. When I was about 20 I started wandering the world and was caught by the travel bug pretty hard, I've been in a bundle of places, experienced many cultures. Wherever I went I was struck by the music, art, architecture, food, nature and the wonderful diversity of peoples. I love our world of differences and similarities, people are people on an essential level and at the same time diverse for myriad reasons. I travelled extensively in Europe, living from busking and agricultural work, I slept rough, a lot, I nearly became a monk, I lived in a squatted village in the Pyrenees, I nearly joined a cult, I had a lot of fun, I made a lot of friends
In my later 20s I thought I should do something more than just wandering around and raving at parties, so having picked up the juggling habit by then I went to Circomedia, a circus school in Bristol. Graduating from there after a year, I worked for a few months as a clown in a travelling circus in Sweden and on returning to the UK moved to London to pursue a career as a circus performer. I was what is known as a jobbing juggler, working at events, nightclubs, festivals and parties, I was not bad, not top tier but of a professional standard with quite a bit of front, cheek and dynamism. I also worked as part of the teaching team at the London Circus school, then called Circus Space and at Oddballs juggling shop in Camden Market.
After some years of working as an entertainer and a teacher, I, to my mothers great relief, decided to get myself an education. I studied Environmental Science at Sussex University and then went on to do a Masters degree in Conservation Science at Imperial College. During my first degree I spent my summers in Ecuador working as part of a team conducting studies and collecting data on the flora and fauna of the Andean cloudforest. After my Masters degree I returned to Ecuador to work as a Biologist and Project Coordinator for a Nature Reserve in the same region, working in association with Sussex University. I counted a lot of stuff, collected a lot of data and wrote about it in a fancy way. I returned to the UK with a lot more hair and a fair grasp of Spanish.
My paintings are a combination of abstraction and fine art. I also make ornamental woodcuts, mandalas and the occasional bit of furniture. I have painted mostly in acrylics and oils on canvases and wooden board. I create "backgrounds" using techniques such as marbling and acrylic pouring that create organic abstract forms, I also use a more structured approach based loosely on geometric patterns to make a variety of backgrounds. Complementing the backgrounds I paint portraits of both people and animals or conceptual scenes. Sometimes the "backgrounds" hold their own and survive as stand alone pictures. With each picture comes a story, a why or a "where from" or a piece of my history.
