I was very good at art as a kid, but this was not something a working class kid from Liverpool “did” for a living . . . but I figured that I would just try and keep making work no matter what else got in the way.

I did my Art Foundation course in Bootle (Liverpool), a very Design/Illustration-biased course, directing most students towards these specialisms.

I did my first degree at Leeds Poly because it was the only place in the UK I could specialise in Printmaking through a Graphic Design course and not through a Fine Art course . . . My work was very tight and very graphic, and I needed the discipline and structure of Graphic Design but I had a fantastic etching tutor, Norman Webster, who taught me the significance of good draughtsmanship and instructed me to loosen up my drawing practice! I had great tutors at Leeds and had access to the full scope of printmaking processes, and technical equipment of a quality that students wouldn’t get near today, I don’t think. We were even allowed, occasionally, to use the print studios at the weekend! At Leeds I made small etchings, and large zinc plate lithographs of dancers, based on drawings I had made of contemporary ballet dancers when they were visiting the city on tour. On two occasions I was given access to the dancers’ rehearsal space so I could draw them at very close quarters.

So I could make large-scale screenprints of dancers, I resurrected an old defunct flat-bed screenprinting table and persuaded the engineering department to make new bolts for it. I Hydroblitzed clean the old screen meshes, clogged up with many years of ink residue, so I could use screens that would fit into the large vacuum-bed screenprinting table. Once I had the whole thing up and running all the other students also wanted to use it – grrrrrrrrr! But I made some lovely screenprints of dancers so that was okay.

Whilst at Leeds, I was headhunted by an Illustration agency in London – they asked if I could draw a man standing on an orange, and I was pretty sure that I could but I had to say no as I wanted, passionately, to be a fine art printmaker. 

I moved to London in 1987, aged 23, and was a “Billy No-mates” with no friends or relatives here, but I knew that I had to be in this great capital city, to pursue my printmaking.

I did my Postgraduate Diploma and my Master of Arts in Fine Art Printmaking at Wimbledon School of Art which was then a tiny college of four hundred students, and not yet part of the University of the Arts London behemoth it is now. I was one of only two students at the college to get prints into a national touring exhibition; I still have that catalogue somewhere. I was also headhunted by Art for Offices who supplied art to corporate clients. When I went down there, they were too busy with some fancy international client to see me so I never went back – their loss!

I made large screenprints when I was at Wimbledon, and continued these at home in a very makeshift studio. I mixed oil-based lithography inks with solvents, instead of using screenprinting inks, as they gave a beautiful satin, velvety density to the printed layer of colour. Screenprinting inks can look a little dull on the paper. My later screenprints investigate geometric shapes and allow me to play with colour. These shapes are informed by architecture, cityscapes and calligraphy, but the action of laying down one colour against another forms an essential component of these prints. If you know anything of screenprinting you’ll know what a wonderfully dynamic and very physical process it is, especially when producing prints on a large scale. Making a screenprint on a flatbed vacuum table with a frame extension for one-arm printing is akin to rowing, so if you did it often enough you’d get quite impressive abs. I don’t screenprint often, alas.

I’ve sold my artworks to various corporate buyers:

Bird & Bird

Eversheds

Herbert Smith Freehills

Mace Group (Construction Management for The Shard building in London)

Verizon (United States)

After Wimbledon, I did what every frustrated artist does – try and find a way to make a living whilst still making good work, and developing as an artist . . . so I had various ‘wage labour’ jobs whilst trying to find printmaking facilities. One of the places I found was the London College of Printing – they used to run a “Lithography for Artists” course which basically allowed frustrated printmakers, like me, affordable access to a wide range of high-value printmaking equipment. It was here I really got into steel-plate etching and this has had a huge impact on my work as it has allowed me to focus my intaglio printmaking solely around the practice of drawing i.e. making marks on the plate, with various drawing media – pencils, pens, paintbrushes, crayons etc. For me, as an intaglio printmaker, printmaking is about “making marks” and these marks, the minutiae of these tiny hand-drawn, and hand-painted strokes create the whole piece i.e. the artwork. 

I’ve found etching the best way to explore these drawn marks. I’ve sold etchings, screenprints and digital inkjet prints to the law firms mentioned above.

FYI – It’s very rare to be allowed to etch steel in a college setting because steel is such a hard metal, and as it etches, it leaves behind a noxious solid deposit, which must be flushed off the metal plate. Using nitric acid is pretty hard-core! So, in our safety-obsessed “non-toxic printmaking” times it is about the most toxic printmaking there is. Hats off to LCP for letting me etch steel and trusting me not to acid-burn or poison myself, or the other students.

Whilst using the facilities at the London College of Printing an art agent saw my work and wanted to help me sell it. Through him I sold work to various corporate clients but he’s retired to a chateau in France, so I must sell my own work, hence the website!

Again, whilst at the London College of Printing, one of my etchings was selected for a huge exhibition of prints made by London art students, and I won the Printmakers Council Award for the Best Intaglio Print. Founder Agatha Sorel chose my etching – one of my most precious achievements. An architect bought this print at the end of the exhibition, straight off the wall, and took it home with him.

I’ve exhibited my work in two group shows in Brussels, at a gallery opposite the Palais de Justice, and my work was reviewed in two Belgian newspapers – Le Soir, and La Libre Belgique.

I’ve exhibited my work in various London galleries (including Bankside and Danielle Arnaud), and at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London. This exhibition consisted of 10 large-scale digital inkjet prints of the Lord Mayor’s Coach – a beautiful hand-made vehicle built in 1757. I was interested in celebrating the quirky allegorical aspects of the coach as well as its superb craftsmanship. These “works on paper” have a soft velvety finish and were made on a state-of-the-art commercial printer.

Most artists (apart from the ones you’ve heard of!) do some sort of paid work alongside making their art, and I’ve done this since leaving college. My ‘paid work’ jobs have been in world class institutions – British Museum, British Library, Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Society of Medicine, King’s College London, and Imperial College London, so I was fortunate in that respect . . .  

But I don’t want to be doing admin jobs until I am 75 years old! 

So, I’ve made this website to allow me to sell my art directly to the people who want to buy it – without the exchange being controlled by agents, dealers and galleries.

We buy art because it makes an appeal to our heart, and music is the one art form makes that connection in the most direct way. As Walter Pater wrote: “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music” 

Good art also makes that visceral connection with us, and we have to have it. I have this reaction to the work of other artists, and my hope is that some of you will see my work and you will respond to it in this way . . . and thank you for reading to the end of this bio 😉