Influences
Like all artists I have borrowed from those that have gone before me. Style, technique, composition, and subject matter have all in some way been influenced by other image makers. I love the work of Van Gogh, Matisse, Klee and Chagall, but the greatest influence is the work of the children I taught while I was a school teacher. I love children’s art for its directness, spontaneity and use of colour. This enables an honesty and clarity which is often lost in sophisticated Western Art.
In my earlier images I attempted to use such elements as intense colours, distorted perspective, lack of detail and strong lineal elements to create a simple “child like” quality in my images. All laws of perspective and colour theory were abandoned. I sought to express in its pure and naïve form, the humanness of our condition within our placed environment. These earlier images were reflective of the Christian world view I had grown up in and the consequent paradigm in which I viewed the world.
"The innocence of the imagination is willing to see new possibilities in what appears to be fixed and framed. There is a “moreness” to everything that can never be exhausted." John O'Donohue. 
More recently, consistent with my spiritual journey, my work falls into the category of "abstract expressionism".
As with all my work, I have attempted to express those deeply personal aspects of my own life, profoundly impacted by the love of my family and my engagement with the Divine. “It seems to me then, and it seems to me still that if God is to speak to us at all in this world, if God speaks anywhere, it is into our personal lives that he speaks.” Buechner. It is this quote by Buechner that helps me synthesize my belief in God, the meaning of my life and the expression of meaning through those visual images. It is obvious from my images and written commentaries that my view of reality and the Divine has shifted and developed as I have lived my life.
"At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilrimage through unforseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul" John O'Donohue.
What is it that captures my attention, that I take notice of, that draws my eye, that attracts me, that captivates me? Why? Is it the Divine speaking to me? As I reflect on these questions they reveal a reality to me, an insight into life and the Divine.
We want the fanfare, the grand, the miraculous and the Divine comes to us in the suffering, in the conflict, in the mundane and the obscure. |
