I am a painter, writer and educator, born in Birkenhead and currently based in Leeds. I studied Fine Art at Liverpool John Moores University, 1993-96, and Art History at the University of Manchester, 2004-06. In 2018, I completed a PhD in Painting at the Royal College of Art. My thesis was titled The Condition of Painting: Reconsidering Medium Specificity. Most of my oil paintings are rather small, and they are usually painted on wooden panels. Sometimes I like to group these small things together to make bigger things. I enjoy painterly handling, and illusory spaces, and edges, and the play of light and shade, and muted colours, and scarified surfaces, and hints of things beneath other things, and objects I can touch and hold. I’ve written about abstract painting, and about medium, and about formalism, and about the white paintings of Maurice Utrillo. I’ve published a collection of artist statements, too, with a second volume hopefully forthcoming. I have exhibited my paintings often, and I have been the recipient of The Hunting Young Artist of the Year Award, 2000, The Gilchrist-Fisher Award, 2004, and The Royal Academy’s British Institution Award, 2015. My teaching has just entered its third decade. I have experience as an external examiner and a reviewer. I have a PGCE, and I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
