STudio
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The Artist
A bit about me.
I am a Bristol based Visual artist and author with a surreal Expressionistic style.
Ever since I was a young boy, I have had a wild and slightly strange imagination, which I've expression in various ways over the years, using many creative outlets. I love everything about the creative process from the initial ideas, right through to the finished piece, be that a painting or a story. Part of me even enjoys the downs along the way, when things don't always go to plan.
I love the mystery and confusion around ones imagination and how an idea can often be half formed, or even make little sense at all. It's almost like trying to tell someone about the amazing dream you had, and never quite being able to capture that magic. Yet that's what I try to do. But that magic is in the mystery, not the clarity.
I spend most of my time in my study, with my mind fully entranced in whatever I have decided to put my time into.
I enjoy hearing what people think of my work, be that a positive or negative. I find a thrill at my audiences own interpretation.
Behind the scenes
As with most things, to create something you are happy with, takes time. Every artist has a different method, but it is something that can’t be rushed. I have quite a chaotic approach to my art. I sometimes have a simple plan scribbled down, which changes greatly as I work. Often I just go with my gut… A completely different approach to how I deal with life. While I’m in my study, I step away from that anxious calculated person and become free.
Here are some works in progress shots.
My approach is different, depending on how I want the finished piece to look. Sometimes I will begin with wire and plan to have paint covering it, but other times I want that wire to be untarnished.
I don't usually know what materials I will use when I start a piece, that just comes to me as I go. Yet I do keep quite an array of strange and peculiar things in my room. I have jars filled with old orange peels and broken glass. I have old bandages and pots of bizarre liquid mixtures, most of which, I have no idea what they contain.
I've always been a very prolific artist, and this does come with a few challenges.
Firstly, it is hard to then find a balance between what is a healthy amount of time in my study and what is too much. I truly believe I could spend pretty much all my time painting. Secondly... Space. The work I do is often large and as you have seen, mostly 3d. The challenge with this is storing it, especially if I have used oils, which take so much longer to dry. So I've continuously had to build new racks to store my work, the first one as you can see, was a simple rack and let me tell you, it didn't last long.
So next I built a whole wall rack, which took some time, but gave me a lot more storage space for my work. Yet even this began to fill up pretty quickly, until I then had to build another, below my animation studio. When I run out of that, I'm into some tricky water.
My next plan is to build a new studio. I’m currently in the planning stage of converting my garage into a brand-new space, where I can make as much mess as I want and have ample storage space. Hopefully that will then last me a year at least.
I have quite a few different drawing boards, all of which I have made from scratch to fit my needs. Yet, they don’t really work with my 3d pieces as that would be a little counter intuitive. This did cause another space issue for me, as my workspace was not quite large enough for my big paintings and to crouch to that level was also a killer on the back. So I built a desk that came out into my room and was collapsible.
When I finally manage to build my new studio, I would like to build a central bench with lighting set up and the ability to walk around it. The dream… At least for me!
Time-lapse Creations.
