October 2021 

Growing up across rural and suburban Canada as a bored kid meant I read a lot. I spent a lot of time at the public library reading things I didn’t quite understand at the time. Tom Wolfe, John Updike, Arthur C Clarke and lots of pulp crime like PD James. I drew a lot because it was cheap. I drew animals and copied things out of books. I took my dog for walks in the fields and verges where the housing developments bled into industrial farmland, listening to metal on my Discman and wandering around on my own. Before printmaking, I learned darkroom photography as a teenager, and most of the images I took were of these uniquely North American boring in-between landscapes that surrounded me. Concrete, weeds, sheds, lawns, freight trains, roads, signs, big skies. 

Today I draw inspiration from a range of sources, spanning high and low culture: dogs, archaeological artefacts, animals, the "pastoral", literature, reality TV, music, folk art, DIY culture, children's picture books, vintage ephemera, décor, material culture, eavesdropping and the built environment. Working as a teacher, youth worker and community arts facilitator has also left an impression on my artwork. I have learned the art of letting go.