TRIBECA Lunch, 2024

The entered work, TRIBECA Lunch, captures a moment where I totally failed to ignore two superstar actors as they dined together.

I paint moments, or very short stories… A seven-second love affair in a Soho shoe shop, a date with someone who failed to see the irony of their endless chatter during the movie ’A Quiet Place’ or a chance encounter with the man who ‘danced’ on a tightrope strung between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974

I paint instinctively and fast. In a way, my portraits are a forlorn quest for balance. Faces are an abstract collection of fulcrums, wires and crescent moons. While some reference Basquiat on seeing my work (I do love words, a fact on which I blame my advertising background), my own reference points include Miro, Freud, de Lempicka, and American artist Nick Cave. Maybe there is a touch of Patrick Caulfield in there too, though I hope my work is ‘like’ no other.

BTW, I once had lunch with Patrick — my girlfriend knew his ex-wife. During the afternoon, we bonded over a shared love of VW’s Karmann Ghia sports car (a poor man’s Porsche), before discovering that neither of us could drive.