I work primarily in oil, but also sketch, and create prints in aquatint and sugar lift. As a painter, I don’t approach the canvas with a preconceived idea. If I do, the painting inevitably goes wrong. My painting is intuitive and instinctive. I seem to need ambiguity and contrast. I want a painting to be representative enough that a viewer can see a figure in a dress, a port city architecture or a boat on the water, but at the same time I’m not interested in trying to recreate a scene or a specific geographical location.

I try to create places where people can rest, like landscapes do. For me, a landscape is never aggressive. It is restful, meditative and contemplative. I want people who view my paintings to take the time to take the time.

I get inspiration from my travels. What comes to me is not necessarily what I have seen, but what I have felt. It can stay in my head for years; it is like a bank from which I withdraw inspiration to work. Ideas come to the surface, not unlike waves that come and go — waves whose ebb and flow I do not control. I am very much a gestural painter, I attack the canvas, so to speak; it is intuitive. The image is built, taken apart and rebuilt with every brush stroke.