RA250 Summer Exhibition: Open Now

Vanishing Point nos 3

I initially trained as a Painter before developing my sculpture studies at the RCA (1982 -1985). In fact, Eileen Cooper (former Keeper at the RA) was one of my tutors at Leicester Polytechnic. 

The landscape of my native heath in Teesdale was the focus for much of my early inspiration, alongside the industrial interface between the land and the sea in the North East of England. Throughout my undergraduate studies a wide gamut of Fine Art practice became part of my studio practice, including installation sculpture from which I made drawings and paintings. 

The seeds of my new “Vanishing Point” series of wall-based artworks are evident in those very early works where I explored spatial form and separation of picture planes. My early influences such as Frank Stella and Richard Diebenkorn, as well as Mondrian’s drawings are discernable in the Vanishing Point series of artworks. However, I’ve now deployed a discreet physicality to the artworks through the use of collage alongside materials such as Perspex. My use of digital media together with traditional methods of practice has permitted an experimental approach to the application of colour and form, used in preparatory drawing and prints.

The notion of landscape is palpable in the Vanishing Point series of artworks, and although they are not studies of particular places they are a distillation of memories associated with landscape which continues to discreetly influence my studio practice.