When I am working my art fluctuates between two levels , the aesthetic and the divine. It moves towards the mysterious when I give away control , and back towards the technical when I lose confidence. It is like learning to fly. I like to retain in my work what Kandinsky described as "an inner necessity of the soul" while paradoxically retaining the Modernist idea that "A picture, before being a war horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered by colours in a certain order." 

I constantly switch between painting (acrylics, watercolours ) and digital art. The aesthetic is similar in both ,my greatest infuences being early abstract painters especially the Blue Rider group in Munich formed by Kandinsky and later the New York School or Abstract Expressionists. Lately i have been interested in creating digital art and video out of Google Earth images, but i strive in the manipulations to preseve the aesthetic in my paintings. When I am using natural rather than digital media I generally use acrylic paint on canvas. I like the immediacy of the medium and the wider difference of feel between the various chemicals than oil. I also enjoy the way you can use water liberally especially in the first stages of a painting.

One frustration I have had recently is that with drying, especially when using a lot of water, lustre and texture are lost. I have begun to photograph my work during these stages, in both an attempt to record the process and create digital art works in there own right. It also gives me confidence to take the painting further because the Photograph becomes an art work in its own right.

Brighter 2008

When I was at Belfast Art college and earlier at Bangor Technical College in the mid 90's, I was fascinated by the emerging technology in digital manipulation. I began to scan my drawings, paintings, photographs etc. and transform them  in photo-shop. I was looking for a certain aesthetic, (Kandinsky,Klee Marc,Miro,Gorky) that I was incapable of creating at that time but seemed to get closer to by these transformations. I had also begun to see what ressembled certain abstract styles in rocks and other found objects. I would scan these rocks and create painterly images on early versions of Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. At that time some processes could take hours on existing 386 computers which was frustrating but you made sure you got it right before you clicked the mouse.

There has been a constant battle in my mind over the use of digital or natural media I find if I do'nt paint for too long I lose something. Also I find paintings hard to get across on the Internet, with problems of gamut, brightness, scale and texture. My digital art is very painterly and when I feel it is superior to my paintings I get quite depressed and need to take my canvases to a new level. It is a healhy artistic but difficult mental struggle.

I have also become interested in the continuing and accelerating progress in the develepment of pigments from the early cave painters to the 21 century and studying this has made me more aware of what is happening on my canvas.

Wet 2009

Recently I have become emerged in Google Earth and the possibilitiies of creating art from the imagery.I love the abstract qualitys of sattelite imagery of the earth from above and have been digitally manipulating these  shots.The process of finding the most interesting images and the composition using tilt, zoom etc. is  as important as the manipulation of colour and light. I try to make the final art-work reflect the same aesthetic that I like in painting although probably more intense because of the difference in mixing light from mixing paint.

Threads 2010

Water especially deep sea satelite images are great to work with this is from an area close to the Bahamas, obviously there has been major colour manipulation. There was a geological survey of the sea bed in this area that was available on Google Earth And I really enjoyed working on these images.

Red Sea 2010 

China's mountains and rivers give fascinating images from above the thread like patterns remind me a bit of Pollock's drip paintings. One challenge Google earth art presents is surmounting the original image although finding and composing the shots on the globe is a challenge in itself.

China Abstract 2010