"First the lines are alive. Then they die. They are dead, and you try to make them live again"

Clear and simple magic uttered by my son while making a drawing at the age of five. It struck me at the time that he got to the bottom of the artistic process, at least my own. When I paint I try to push the work to the point where it gains its own voice even at the risk of failing and then try to rescue it from the edge of self-destruction.

Painting for me is an experiential act, a journey which transforms me and takes me to places I haven’t been before.  I try to get away from the formulated mark by being in the moment, inviting the accidental mark of the brush or pencil or the occasional drip.  I try to remain receptive and keep exploring. It is only by ‘tuning in’ that I can reach towards some level of truth, even if the result may look naive. I often try to use my left hand because it has not learned to “walk” yet on canvas, or draw with both hands at the same time, in a process of disclosure in which I assume a place of ‘unknowing.’ I work from instinct, grasping for a more fundamental mark that can reveal something unsaid from within. The immersive quality of music or the spoken word helps me cut off from the world and focus my mind on the painting - it is a state of mind to which my body follows. The blank canvas becomes the stage on which emotions manifest. I drift between a singularity of being and an emptiness of self.