I am an analytical person. I enjoy solving puzzles, playing games, going for long walks and listening to music, particularly opera. For much of my four decades in IT, I designed and implemented computer systems that looked for patterns in data and highlighted their significance to the user. A similar process is embedded in my approach to making art, and whether I am painting or printmaking, I seem to be saying ‘look at this!’ I want people to share in the excitement of being outdoors surrounded by patterns and colour, therefore I paint and make prints. 

I am drawn to printmaking because it offers almost limitless opportunity for experimentation and refinement while using a set repertoire of cutting techniques and composition guidelines. Working with lino is particularly exhilarating because I am paradoxically free to produce an infinite range of marks within the defined process by making minor adjustments with my tools, paper, inks and pressing technique. 

Most printmakers never really know the outcome until they pull the first print and I am no different. Every print in my limited editions will be a unique combination of inking, pressure and registration. They may come off the same block, but a lino print is not a copy of an original work - it is an original in its own right.

I became an artist because I love the act of creation. Occasionally the result is thrilling because it communicates exactly what I had hoped. It might even make you feel that you’re in the landscape rather than merely admiring a nice picture. More often than not the outcome will be ‘meh’ but it is the promise of success, the chance that there’s a beauty waiting to be revealed that I find addictive, and that’s why I love making art.