INK&WAX PAINTINGS

My ink & wax pieces draw both from nature and the world around me, and from an inner world of the imagination, language, memory and the subconscious..

Titles are important to me. These paintings evolve from random ink patterns drawn loosely over a wax resist. Looking, and looking again, an image, word or story arises in my mind which in turn I rework into the image. Making these paintings is a process that constantly feeds back and forth between the visual and the narrative.

Much of the atmosphere in this work goes back to my rural childhood with its superstitions, its tales of temperamental and mischievous spirits, and the many flitting, half-seen, half-imagined creatures with which a child's imagination populates forests and dark barns. Animal, human, or both, these tricksters, performers and others are shape-shifting and ambiguous, comical or mythical creatures