My Story.

The kind of art I do requires concentration and patience and a little bit of forethought. You cannot rush a pen and ink drawing. It takes its own time, and emerges as it will. I often think the the shapes that come out of an encounter with the pen and the page are already there and the act of sitting down, paying attention and applying the pen, simply finds them out.

For me, this kind of ‘slow art’ is an antidote to the frenetic and dislocated experience of modern life. It is a kind of rebellion against it. 

That said, over the years, my pen work had ‘loosened’, something my art teachers at school were always trying to force to no avail. There is a tension between the application of pen, which is very unforgiving and the search for form in line. As my paper sizes get bigger, I find this slightly looser style helps me.