ARTISTS STATEMENT
My artworks are a direct reflection of my life experience, the places I have lived, the development of a personal visual literacy, made with the craft skills acquired through decades of working as a commercial photographer.
The first peace of mind I ever experienced came from being in places completely away from the built environment and the crush of other human beings. I didn't take photographs then but those times and places have always influenced and informed the kind of images I still want to make today.
Images that pull the viewer into a moment of 'being there'. Exploring and documenting fecundity, mortality, and the stories I see happening as life rolls along.
LIFE.
I landed at Heathrow at 2.30pm on January 20th 1976 from my birth country New Zealand, after 3 months in South Africa. To find my feet in the strange, alien and sometimes hostile city of London I assisted photographers. Substistence living in the world of high end fashion photography.
After a couple of years I was able to start shooting for my own clients, editorial, reportage, Public relations, initially all 35mm
The opportunity to base myself in a large commercial studio in Clapham was offered and before long I was shooting on large format cameras for advertising and design group clients. The business environment changed and this studio was obliged to shut down so I had to relocate to another studio share this time in funky Clerkenwell. Rented commercial space was not stable so my next move was to my own studio in what was at that time fashionable and edgy Brick Lane, E2. For some clients in 1988 this was too far away from central London, is it now?
I made the conscious decision to focus on being a commercial photographer, that was to be busy shooting rather than someone who only chased high profile ad campaigns. It was a good pragmatic business decision which saw me in the black after a few years plus I got the odd high end, high visibility retail campaign. I also developed my own photographic style and some unique photo compositing techniques. This attracted new and different clients.
My passion for photography led me to learn about other visual mediums, to undertake a self taught education into all things visual and related to what I came to understand as the Physchology of Vision.
The mechanics of image making have changed considerably over the last 55 years but the fundamentals, the rules of composition, whether one chooses to follow them or not, have been constant for centuries.
From the moment I walked into the first photographioc studio I had ever been in, and shortly after that into a darkroom, I knew I had found my place and my route to fulfilling whatever I wanted to do. It is no surprise to me that all these years later I am still hand making Black and White images although now using Polymure gravure etching plates and a flat bed press.
WORK.
2025 Dulwich Festival Artists Open House
2025 Hardess Studios, Art Core, 'Anyone Can Drawer' Invited contributor
2024 Solo exhibition at Hardess Studios
2024 RE Printmakers. Selected for 'Small But Mighty'
2024 Urban Art Fair, Josephine Ave, Brixton
2024 Bunch of Egos, Group show
2023 Urban Art Fair in Josephine Ave., SW2
2023 Camberwell Arts Open Studios
2022 & 2023 Dulwich Festival Artists Open House
2010 & 2014 Selected for the Dulwich Picture Gallery Open Exhibitions. London
1996 Solo exhibition ‘Transform’ at the Foreign Press Association, London.
1993 Collaborative work with Eric Moody, mixed media artist, exhibited with the London group.
1991 Exhibited in The Art Directors Index, London, Arles, Milan, and Barcelona.
1990 Solo exhibition ‘Out of Water’ at the New Zealand High Commission, London.
1988 Solo exhibition at Portobello Gold Hotel, Portobello Rd, London.
1975 Contributor to The Active Eye exhibition sponsored by The Queen Elizabeth 11 Arts Council of NZ, and Kodak.