My work looks at landscape and how people have made their mark. I’m interested in our lived environment, how in older buildings we can see how communities have grown and built together, from the very stones that were hefted into place to the way one home embraces and supports its neighbour, and how the bones of the land shape how we move around and live our lives.
My chosen technique is lino print. I will walk the landscape, drawing and photographing. I then create an ink painting of the print to be. This is traced on to a block of lino, drawn up again, I then cut away with small gouges where I don’t want the ink to appear. Then a roller with printing ink lays a layer of ink on the block, a sheet of paper pressed down and the image reverses back to the landscape we recognise. Editions of prints are hand made and in small numbers.
I was born in Aberdeen and studied at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen from 1978 to 1982, graduating with a Diploma in Fine Art (Painting). My next 20 years I worked as a community artist, theatre designer, festival director, arts centre manager and an arts officer in Bristol. In 2003 with my wife Carla we established The Creative Retreat, an artist residency centre and art holiday business in Gardenstown. Since then I have been recovering my practice, starting printmaking in 2012. I have been exhibiting across the UK and in other countries – where I had residencies, in Istanbul, Norway and Italy. I am currently working on illustration projects with writers, on commercial projects and making my own work.
