"The sky was overcast and that south wind stirred up all the filthy smells from the ravaged garden and the parched fields."
Arthur Rimbaud − Season in Hell.

Rimbaud offers us a fresh and disconcerting visual familiarity which becomes a prelude to delight, he makes you think "Huh? Wow!". These are in some sense the very objectives I try to Achieve in my paintings. I create environments such as gardens that are familiar yet unreal. As is the nature of gardens they aim to open up a world full of wonder and delight. Although in my work I play upon the strangeness and impetuosity that belies the natural garden, at times my paintings are dark and funny, eccentric and odd, even absurd. They explore the potential the garden has to be a place for " digging and daydreaming", a location in which one can dream about the future and reflect upon a nostalgic past. By allowing the materiality of the paint to become the image, I am able to build up the surface until at which point the painting stops describing the landscape but becomes a landscape in itself. It is through the activity of painting and the orchestration of a variety of references and influences that I am able to reinforce the enchantment and strangeness of such gardens. These references range from detective novels to medieval tapestry, from mundane objects to Dutch flower painting, Ellsworth Kelly, Prunella Clough and Raul De Keyser. Even the childhood memories I have of my mums' garden and my granddads' greenhouse, have all at some level found a place within my painting.