I have an exhibition starting this weekend. It’s in a relatively small room adjacent to a larger dining area and bar at The Reliance in Leeds. It’s a complete contrast to the white wall environment of my other current exhibition at Redbrick Mill in Batley, where glossy immaculate digitally reconstructed urban landscapes adorn the space. The Reliance show is not exhibiting final resolved pieces. It’s a small intimate room with dark green walls lending itself to a variety of sm

Despite the rain and consequential almost-floods requiring construction of a barrage of bags of compost across the drive, I made it in to work eventually. Spent the afternoon playing with pastel and charcoal to develop and attenuate a surface of household paint. Having passed hours on preparatory pieces and sketchbook experiments, it’s approaching the moment of truth. I can play around with layers all I want because it’s “only” a layer and thus only a stepping stone pretty mu

Ok, so I’ve done some further thinking. This blog is ultimately looking at the creative process from my personal perspective. It began with the 365+ digitally-created self portraits of 2010-2011, a social media project projecting and exploring the presentation of self in an era of over-proliferation of posted self-portraits. Not a few people who actually know me in real life were unsettled by my frequently unflattering self-portraits as I tried to draw, paint and photograph e