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. And 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.
Established in 2021, the National Emerging Art Prize was created to provide an annual, highly visible national platform to identify, promote and support the most promising emerging visual and ceramic artists in Australia.