The Artist

I have always favoured working from the human figure, most often with a leaning toward abstraction, and, generally in oil or acrylic.  My career began with portraits of friends and children, but over the past 25 years has focused more on athletes, dancers, and most recently, figures taking a shower.

I believe the human figure to be the artist’s greatest resource for inspiration and creativity, and that its draughtsmanship, to be one of the foundation stones of all interesting art, and perhaps of all good art.  It it’s no surprise to me that contemporary art is increasingly concerned with the human figure.

The iconography for bathing subjects goes back to ancient Greece, and comes to us today via early Christian themes, the Renaissance, Rembrandt, Degas and Bonnard, and incredible though it may be, is in essence unchanged.  In representational art this ‘essence’ is perhaps best appreciated in the story of ‘Susanna and the Elders’, the best depictions of which show Susanna bathing, whilst entirely, utterly and completely unaware of being observed.

It has been said of Degas’ works of women washing, getting in and out of the bath, towelling down etc., that so realistic are they, there is a sence he wasn’t actually in the room at the time, or even that he did not make his presence known to his models.  It is this very sense of seeking to capture the figure in a completely natural pose, a pose which would not be adopted at any time other than when alone and unaware of posture, and so typically when washing or showering – which is very much the inspiration for much of my work.