I have always been drawn to portraiture. It is by far the oldest form but nonetheless has managed to evolve throughout it’s troubled life. Revered by Flemish painters and deemed decadent and old fashioned by Avant-gardists, portraiture today holds a great challenge for contemporary artists. How does one create a new objectivity within such an established tradition? This question is at the forefront of my work.

I am always reluctant to exclusively call my work ‘Drawing’, since technically, I feel closer to the discipline of painting. These works are done using water-colour pencil on paper. Upon discovering water-colour pencils; I found that unlike wax crayons their pigment was soft enough to blend and layer colours on top of each other; much as one would with paint. Since I use dry water-colour pigment straight from the pencil, I am able to maintain rich tones, which would otherwise be diluted with water. The process is very similar to egg tempera painting where the artist works by layering small hatches of color. Throughout my many affairs with oil painting and drawing, I return again and again to this technique since it fulfills both worlds for me in one.

I work primarily from three quite opposing points of influence; the Flemish school, Symbolist and Secessionist artists, and the German Neue Sachlichkeit period of the twenties. I love the level of realism that Flemish painters achieved yet I am drawn more to Impressionist pallet that Symbolist and Secessionist painters used.

Thematically, my goal is to create a narrative that is not exclusive to the sitter of the portrait. I like to use unobvious symbols and dream imagery for, in this way, I can avoid a collective narrative. Much in the same way that a reader will juxtapose their own image onto the main protagonist, I wish for viewers to look at my portraits and find a particular character who is a mirror of themselves and who, in turn, they can attach a story to.