For a long time, I believed that making something well meant knowing where I was going. I wanted to understand the outcome before I began to make the right choices, avoid the wrong ones, and bring an idea to the canvas exactly as I had imagined it.
Painting slowly changed that. I began to discover that some of the most interesting moments happen when a painting moves somewhere I hadn’t planned.
I usually begin with an image that has stayed with me, something with a strong impression and a certain mood, and go straight onto the canvas, starting with colour rather than a detailed plan.
As the work develops, I let the colours guide me, mixing tones by hand and working them into the weave of the canvas with brush and knife. I build their density in response to the image in my mind, watching how one colour changes the moment it meets another. I know a painting is settling when I feel a sense of balance across the surface, the point where the colour finally speaks for itself.