“I look out over Lyme Bay - where on most days scarcely a vessel is visible bar the occassional fishing boat - and so armed with a SHIP matchbox I build my own fleet to fill the void. Big boats. Expensive boats. Boats full of wealth. The super yacht is my mammoth.  An ultimate object of conspicuous consumption. Amongst them I am a lone kayaker - the hunter amidst their prey.

I make mostly flat stuff for walls and occasional ‘shelfage’, using oil and oilsticks, spray, and canvas, plus flotsan, jetsam, lagan and derelict items, on large panels, reclaimed shipping crates, and small matchboxes - the original of which was found on the bleakest of days on a Margate beach many years ago.

I draw and paint from life as well as memory, working up larger pieces in the studio, and am as likely to work on the floor as on the wall, attacking from all directions, with quick expressive marks, using large brushes, on long (broom) handles, with rough loose drippy paintwork, having the appearance of spontaneity.

My subjects are drawn from personal experience as well as media imagery and include boats behaving badly, farm yard activities, triumphs and disasters at the local flower and produce show, and other unscripted activities. Portrait drawings and paintings form another strand of work.

My paintings on matchboxes address the time honoured tradition of the street vendor selling matches, and during lockdown I started making matchbox paintings with the intention to leave out on the doorstep for sale. Since then they have became a means of smuggling my work via the utilitarian object into places where the painting might become accepted.

I’m interested in the dynamic relationship between angler and fish, hunter and hunted, salvager and salvage, maker and collector, and am seeking to find a space for my work such that it can migrate between these worlds.

Frequently I employ utilitarian (and often knowingly ‘failed’) pastiches of super lux products - what one might call ‘utilitarian lux’ as a form of ‘lure’.