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a brief history
Born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1960. Family moved to Cork in 1970. Educated Cork Grammar School and Ashton Comprehensive, Cork. Studied at the Crawford School of Art, Cork (1977-82). Has had four solo exhibitions at the Sirius Art Centre, Cobh (1994, 1995, 2001 and 2004), a two-man exhibition at the Triskel Arts Centre, Cork (1983), and a three-man exhibition at the Soloman Gallery, Dublin (1983). Regular exhibitor in group exhibitions in the Sirius Art Centre in Cobh, and the Cork Arts Society Gallery (The Lavitt Gallery) in Cork. Mural commission for University College Cork in 1987.
Public collections include Crawford Gallery, Cork and University College Cork.
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"I have always been a realist. I was photo-realist when I graduated, but I have since become more relaxed about accepting that the soul of the subject can be conveyed without having to portray every pore or blade of grass. It has taken me quite a while to reach this point. I still have no idea whether the next painting is going to be loose or detailed, though. They seem to emerge of their own accord.
"I take my motifs from the visible world but they are chosen in response to the emotional needs that one has on a given day, at a given stage of life. Which I suppose would make me a Romantic artist. Having said that, I have always been interested in trying to depict the world as I see it without schematising, simplifying, glamourising or sentimentalising it. For me it is quite enough of an achievement to represent my subject straightforwardly, an apple, for example being quite interesting enough in its apple-ness, to make a resonant painting without me making a painting which relies for interest on my making the onlooker concentrate on the paint, on the way it is painted."
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