About Me

Who am I, and why do I create my art?

I was born in Sydney in 1971. I studied Fine Arts and Graphic Design after finishing school in 1989. My career revolved around Graphic Design helping others build their brands, marketing collateral and websites. 

After my dad passed in 2018, I found myself feeling quite sad in a very unexpected way. If you have lost someone close, you would understand the void that appears where they would normally be! My business in turn started to fail. The workload dried up, and the stress related to that sense of failure caused me to spiral into a depression that I struggled to cope with. At the same time I managed to push away the people I cared about the most - my wife and kids.

Not wanting to simply take medication to fix how I was feeling, I started searching for a deeper meaning to life, and my life specifically. My wife and kids all played a huge part, an unbreakable strength from them to allow me time and space to heal.

In that journey I started to learn about my Higher Self, understanding that I have control of my thoughts and feelings, recognising the choices I make every day have a huge impact on my life and the people around me. 

Around this time I started to rediscover my hidden love and desire to paint and be an artist.

I made a conscious choice to be an artist whatever it took, and so the journey began. However, around this same time, while I was lifting myself out of my depression and rebuilding my purpose in life, my mum was diagnosed with an aggressive pancreatic cancer. Devastating news less than 12 months after dad passed. What a blow this was to all of us!

For the following 18 months, we all helped mum with appointments and day to day tasks as her health and strength deteriorated, while juggling our own home and work lives.

After her operation, I decided I would spend time with her every day and so work and painting took a back seat. This gave me the opportunity to dive deeper into understanding myself and the purpose of life. Sadly mum passed in 2020, 18 months after her initial diagnosis.

Both mum and dad had their own personal struggles with Cancer, and for this reason, I have decided to donate part of my art sales to Cancer research. It’s the least I could do!

They both taught me some very valuable life lessons through all this.

1. Life is unpredictable, don’t wait until later to do something… just do it now!

2. You have the choice to accept what is happening in the moment, or complain… they never complained! Ever!

3. Everything happens for a reason. We have the opportunity to learn from the things that happen to us and grow from them. 

While I miss them both dearly every single day, I am comforted knowing their energy is still around me, and they are still continually teaching me life lessons.

For this reason, I feel my art has taken a big step forward personally. My art comes from deep within. Although I like to create from images, photos and even on location sometimes, the biggest part of my art is the feeling. We all know about the ‘zone’ an athlete is in when they’re on their game. That same thing happens to me when I am painting. 

It has always been something that has felt comfortable to me. Not necessarily easy or natural. Every piece takes time to develop. Each piece is a challenge. Each is unique in how I create it and the inspiration behind it… but it is comfortable.

The artwork develops not only from a visual perspective, but from an emotional and energetic one too. It’s a different sense that takes over guiding me to add colour or texture to something, somewhere. It’s intuitive, healing and calming. 

I aim to show a sense of that energy and emotion in my work through movement and texture, along with the use of vibrant colour. To have the viewer feel something, spark an emotion, ignite a memory. I hope you feel that like I do.

Everything around us is perceived differently by each of us based on our past experiences and interpretations. Take a dog for example, some love dogs, some are impartial to them and some fear them. This is all based on past experience. If I was to paint an image of a dog, these feelings all play a part in their appreciation of that piece.

This is what art does. One artwork might sing joy to someone, while it leaves someone else empty! There is no right or wrong piece of art to me. Every artwork is unique and says something different to everyone who sees it… and that is so incredible to consider.

Over the last few years I have become more and more fascinated by the idea we are all energetic beings, and that we are all energetically connected. I hope to express this love in my artworks.

Thank you mum and dad for all you have taught me, and all you continue to share with me.

If you are interested in a bespoke, unique and custom created artwork for your home or office, please reach out.