I graduated from Birmingham in visual communications and started work as a graphic designer at the BBC but soon realised I wanted more freedom. 
     I came into teaching art and found working with some brilliantly talented art teachers and students immensely stimulating. After gaining an MDes. at Liverpool School of Architecture I began to take my own work more seriously and started to paint again.

    All things marine have a fascination for me and in particular the traditional old wooden boats that may be found in ever decreasing numbers around our coast.

     In that sense I suppose I am more  a painter of moments in time than a marine artist as most of my subjects will not be around for the next generation to see. In this way my paintings are a way of holding on to things.

   The wholesale and rapid destruction of heavy industry in the South Yorkshire town where I grew up has made me precious about our industrial past. As with old boats I enjoy painting old heavy industrial sites as they too are becoming rare.

    Perhaps before both boats and industry finally disappear we may convince the National Trust that it is not just the rich that have a past worth preserving.