I've just sent an email to a student in art and design, in reply to the following questions. It is apparently to help with her visual research journal (perhaps that is how she found mine). I've received a few emails like this from time to time and I thank her curiosity or interest in my work for helping to add a new entry to my journal...Why do you choose to work in mixed media?I am not sure it's always a conscious choice to use mixed media, it's more intuitive than that, based on what seems right at the time. However, I am very concerned with the physical presence and tactile qualities of materials and the creative possibilities contained thererin. I did my Masters Degree in printmaking and learnt how to grind pigments for ink, pulp paper and use chemicals to alter the physical surfaces of things. I began to enjoy more the experimenting with raw materials (copper, wood, paper, etc) than merely visualising finished images for prints, which could be made by knowledge of a particular process. In my degree show, I did a series of cast paper reliefs on the thirty-six longest rivers of the world and constructed very large composite prints from contour lines of maps using deeply bitten copper and etched linoleum - even then the theme in my work was to do with the topography of the landscape. I still use a lot of basic printmaking methods in my work, such as transfer, surface engraving and monoprinting but these tend to be embedded within the layers of the finished work. Sometimes I am uneasy with calling them paintings since I rarely use a brush!How does your photography link to your paintings?Photography is often (but not always) more immediate in terms of realising an interesting image than painting. On some occasions I have been back to a location at particular times to take more photographs so that I get the image I want - light plays a big part. Whilst they are standalone images they do influence my other work to a degree - as ongoing visual references. Photography definitely provides a clearer narrative (its a real situation not reconstructed), but mixed media has a unique visual language of its own - a strong physical presence through the combination of media used - straight photography sometimes lacks these more emotive and visceral qualities. I do not consider my photographs to be artworks in themselves since they are so easily arrived at - but they do provide a complementary glimpse into my artistic concerns. A big influence on me has been the work of the Boyle family - their painted constructions are breathtaking, living photographs in 3D, if that makes sense. I would absolutely love to get a glimpse into their working methods! However, in my paintings (as mentioned above) the materials seem to take control, and so none of them are a direct copy or facsimile of a location, though of course I could not paint them without having first observed some object or detail in the landscape.Why do you title many of your paintings edgescape with a number but the photographs have different titles?It's a word I made up (though it may already exist!) - edge refers to locations or places which are marginal, peripheral, and to the physical edges of materials (even a simple line has two edges), scape signifies the lie of the land (as in original meaning/origin of landscape). Together they seemed to sum up my feeling of being both an observer of something real and yet also to do with the visual perception (and memories) of such subject matter and the finished artwork. As mentioned above, although derived from landscape, something changes in the translation from looking through to making so that I end up with something which only hints at its origin, which could also be perceived afresh when pictorial logic is removed (ie, a representational image). I also didn't want the works to be misinterpreted, rather they are very open to interpretation (to illicit a more intuitive or abstract response). So, the numbering system began - they link in many ways - in timescale usually (date started or completed) but also it helps to see them as an ongoing series. I've often felt duty bound to add a subtitle but these usually refer to the influence or use of a particular material in the making of it (as in Sylte for silt). Leonardo Da Vinci said in his Treatise on Painting, to look at the mud on walls, ashes from a fire, for here you will see beautiful new things - pretty advanced thinking for the time, but he was a scientist of sorts too. Regarding the photographs, as mentioned above, they're real, truthful, so the title is merely descriptive and are not intended to influence any reading or interpretation of the image.Which artists have inspired you and why?Da Vinci, as mentioned above for starters. Rothko was one of the first modern artist's work I saw in the flesh at the tender age of seventeen - I was astounded that pure colour could generate so much contemplation! Pollock too at this time since I really connected with the physical making of the work and the heartache behind it - not everyone gets it of course, but I think it's quite lyrical in essence. Over the years, I have been inspired by the work of many artists but perhaps more recently I would definitely say late Constable and Turner for their abandonment of formality, Schwitters, Tapies, Burri for their unconventional or unorthodox use of materials, Twombly for sublimely poetic works which have a genuine, unadulterated touch of hand, and now Anselm Kiefer - whose work is brutal and visually arresting but also quite intriguing and beautiful to look at on a formal level, despite the quite deeply moving subject matter. I suppose I must also thank Picasso for using collage in his Cubist painting period - prior to this, painting had very much followed a trajectory of pictorial illusion.Thanks for your questions - it's been good to sit down and answer one by one - I almost feel like a student again too - validating my work to my tutors!P.s Anyone reading this, feel free to email similar (or different) questions. They make for easy journal entries!
A show of colour
The hang went exceeding smoothly, thirteen pieces in all, six large works contrasted by seven much smaller pieces.
I was able to achieve my trio format in what is an irregular space.
The Halesworth Gallery is located in the town's old almhouses - split across three distinct spaces, with exposed beams, undulating distempered walls and a gently rolling oak floor. It is a gallery very much for artists, run by volunteers many of whom are also practising artists. Founded in 1966, early exhibitors included Elisabeth Frink, Felix Topolski, Mary Potter and Joseph Herman. It is perhaps not the perfect white cube by today's gallery standards, but each defined space has an intimate character of its own and a mellow light is filtered by the small windows. I am in the middle space, curiously occupying the artistic middle ground between the formal abstraction of Ray Burgoyne's work and the colourful narratives of Val Armstrong's prints. Whilst my work may on first encounter appear abstract, it is borne out of direct observation and influenced by the juxtapositions and variables of the natural and manmade environment. I took on the task of designing the PV invite and exhibition poster in which I found the common theme throughout our work was our use of colour, hence I came up with the title of the exhibition Colour Values - I'm rather pleased with that, as it alludes to the emotive qualities of colours as well as perception, application, appearance and usage.the colour values exhibition poster...
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On walking back to the car park I came across what I considered to be a most beautiful object - a rusting oil can covered in small squares of silver gaffer tape. It was positively gleaming in the sunshine, an almost perfect colour harmony of turquoise and orange beckoning me forward. I have been playing with combining collage elements (using some of the remnants of my plastic painting experiments) with a more textural paint surface, and here was a shining example (a new addition to my found paintings) borne out of serendipity. Perhaps it is a sign that I should move away from a constant horizontal in which too many see a stylistic Rothko influence. This was not my intention, it is merely that I am fascinated by layers, edges and meeting points where materials and surfaces meld and fuse together. The horizon is all too prevalent in the local landscape, and so this too is reflected in the work. The oil can also strangely exhibited the same oranges and rusted browns that I had attempted to explore in one of my newest paintings, which is in the colour values exhibition... 
Edgescape #10 ShredI feel that my spirits have lifted in line with the warmer weather, much richer and more opulent colours are now creeping into my vision and into my palette...
passing places - part II
I live near a disused airfield, in which the public byway through it is a well known shortcut. Interspersed regularly along this single track road are a number of notch-like bays, all with the sign 'passing place'. I've always been intrigued by these signs - a metaphor perhaps for taking stock, remembering or acknowledging both the present and the past, the transience of all things (in which I am most interested as an artist) - the small in-bays in which one can only momentarially stop and survey the flat vista, whilst waiting for another car or cars to pass. Here, the landscape is bleak, almost deathly in winter time, the rough-ploughed ground of black earth dissected by the fast disintegrating tracks of old runways.This is a photograph that I took from my car window last September, the idea to take four in my travels back and forth over the year at the very same passing place - an idea which has yet to fully materialise.
I'm currently involved in an art trail (local open studios), of little mention here perhaps as there is no associated website, but it's all part of the local Arts Festival. Over three open days I've had twenty three visitors which seems little to boast about. One does feel a bit of a curiosity at such events - meeting and greeting, and in the words of one of my visitors - enabling a small glimpse into the private world of the artist.Visitors have come and gone, all intrigued, some inspired, but this passage of people has been very good for me to articulate my artistic concerns. I've been labelled purely abstract and yet I want my work to engage people with their own perceptions and experiences of the smaller details in the landscape. Expounding upon the surface and material qualities of my work I've felt compelled to draw upon their own notions of beauty and aesthetics - textures connect us with something very pagan, earthy, a direct experience of nature or the environment, more muted colours can be serene, beautiful, philosophical, or reflective of the human psyche. The anticipation of visitors on what is a thoroughly miserable and dull day weather-wise has prompted me to sit down and write this.I never made it to the centre of the Fens, Kings Lynn, to the private view of the Eastern Open Exhibition '06. I was feeling under the weather - a mild bug of the sort you get when teaching - they only materialises during the holiday breaks. I recently said to a friend that I've also no desire to drive for two hours to look at my work in a gallery, when I have been staring at it for most of the last year in my studio. Morose and apathetic perhaps, passing off a new networking opportunity (and to view the work of the other selected artists) - but the weather has been so unseasonably bleak - made all the worse as I have spent much of my free time nurturing my skills in gardening.This journal could easily evolve into a gardener's blog - the trials and tribulations of organic gardening. I'm awash with baby plum tomato and pepper plants, the courgettes are already setting fruit and yet it's a tad too early to transplant outside, and the climbing french beans are sending out their spindly tendrils in search of any vertical structure on which to cling. But, I am holding my guns until the end of May (never cast a clout 'til May be out, or some such saying). Aphids are a perennial problem but it is pleasing to see ladybirds and hoverflies on warm days, and I've made an impenetrable hedge from holly clippings to raise the ante somewhat on a war with slugs. So, where has this sudden burst of near self-sufficiency emerged from? Both frugality and a genuine desire for real food no less. My homemade compost has come in most handy - too rich on its own for many plants, but the beans and courgettes will hopefully languish in its earthy goodness, further enhanced by some ever accomodating hens in the organic manure department.I am showing some new paintings with two other artists at the Halesworth Gallery next month. My plan is to show three new large pieces, a triptych and six small works - multiples of three are appealing to me at the moment. It is proving hard to focus completely on my art when now is also the busiest time in the garden, but tight deadlines and a visiting public are always a great motivator...