One of the most common questions I get asked is, “what kind of art do you do?” At first, I tried to avoid answering altogether, giving cop-out answers like, “well, it really has to be seen. I can’t describe it.” After a while I realised not only was that answer patronising, but it also did my actual work a great disservice. So much of my work has been prompted by good conversations, or has evolved from the writing or reading of things, that I have begun to really value attempts to describe or discuss the production of artwork.

I have tried ‘blogging’ a number of times in the past. Each attempt has been fun, usually short-lived, and always (in) vain. Thinking about why it’s never really worked for me, I realised I never really had a focus. I just wanted to ‘do blogging’, perhaps as some kind of vanity project in some tiny corner of the internet. And, of course, on some level, this is still exactly that. Today, though, I have a focus; something I want to write about, on a (relatively) regular basis. That thing is art, or, more specifically, making art.

My Facebook Page has acted as a kind of visual log of what I’m up to in and out of the studio, and I’d like this Medium account to do the same, but in words. On my website, I’ve written:

“My work examines the relationship between painting and other modes of expression by questioning the traditional hierarchies of each medium. This results in a desire that the finished work should be seen primarily as a relic of its own artistic process.”

This is what I’d like to get into a little deeper. I don’t know how far I can take that particular idea, whether my focus will change, or anything like that. The hope is more that this ‘blog’ can be both a springboard for new ideas and a mortician’s slab for examining old ones.

Who knows when my next ‘article’ will be, but you better believe I’ll have something to say (or very tentatively ask).