The Process of Painting.

Here are some paintings from 2019 with a description of the some of the thinking process involved in making the work.

I took part in an artist residency at Trinity Buoy Wharf, the year that I made the drawing for the background of this painting. The painting is a fluid mix of people and background scenes of the area around Trinity Buoy Wharf, that was the place where Faraday did many of his experiments into the buoyage system, and the first electric lighthouses.

As the painting developed I introduced one figure after another to start to form a narrative. The children playing cricket, as characters in the narrative, attracted my attention because of the way they animate the space in the painting and the way children playing in parks or public spaces bring a positive atmosphere to the urban environment. I discovered the seated figure worked well with the young boy holding the bird of prey, the boy reminded me of a great youth worker that was a colleague for many years - the team first came across him in a local park when he was a teenager and he had a bird of prey. The older man talking to him was an important element to put into the painting, because I wanted to include a positive image of an older person, as their wisdom is an indispensable aspect of our community.