Spinning Plates, Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 60 cm, 2023

I love it when people say my paintings are joyous and make them happy, but that’s not my primary motivation. It’s a bonus.

So… why do I paint abstraction… what do my paintings mean? These are not easy questions.

To sidestep for a second, what is it about a figurative painter like Constable, Monet, or Van Gogh that pulls me in? It’s not the landscape, it’s how the artist paints them. It’s the connection with the artist not the inherent beauty in the scene. Beauty and connection are different things.

In that sense the landscape is a vehicle to connect the artist and the viewer, it’s not the end product.

I am using abstraction in the same way that a figurative painter is using landscape… to connect.

I am painting abstraction because I’m interested in pure colour and how it talks to us and not in how colour describes the world.

So, to answer my questions… I paint to connect with people… my paintings don’t mean anything in a conceptual or a political sense, but then what does a Constable or a Monet painting mean? My paintings are not about global warming, racism, or identity… they are about connecting with people.