When asked how and where do I see myself in the arts my answer is very simple, I see myself as a Christian, a favourite quote is “an artist is not a special person but every person is a special artist.”

Everything else is just appearances so when I tackle these subjects the appearance doesn’t matter, are the cloths from a bygone age? Would it not express more put in a contemporary context? All this is superficial to the real content of the work. When I paint the Virgin Mary I paint Mother Earth, when I paint Jesus I am painting humanity personified, and humanity has remained the same from time immemorial, at the end of the day who knows what Jesus looked like, could he have been black? But at the same time I feel it important to try and see Jesus in everybody around us as God is all around us so when I paint the nude it is in this context ; in landscapes I am painting about a sense of place where as in portraits a sense of being, the presence of things.

It is said that at worst my portraits look like the person but at best it is like having someone in the room with you. When I paint the Stations they are usually encaustic and in the proportion of a candle symbolising the light of the world, a delicate flame of light in the darkness, at the end of the day painting should be a movement from darkness into light not a representation of this but an actual manifestation of this....

And to explain ones role in society at large, I like to quote Satish Kumar: “I slept and dreamt that life was Joy, I awoke and saw life was service, I acted and behold service was joy.”

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