Helen Frankenthaler says “A really good picture looks as if it’s happened at once. It’s an immediate image”.

The moments when your head and heart synchronise to produce such a work come when you are not looking. Just as you are caught by an unexpectedly beautiful image as you turn a corner and have left your camera at home. It may be that the image has always been there and it’s only the synchronicity of head and heart that allows you to see it on this occasion.

My practice appears to come from the Japanese literary style that believes the truest representation of the searching mind is to ‘follow the brush’ or in my case ‘follow the pencil’, drawing and developing ideas across shadows, light and fleeting moments. I enjoy taking a concept and carrying it across other materials when an idea allows.

Chance and balance play a big part in how the work develops and the possibility of something ‘just happening’ as I follow my pencil brings me to a place, in the end, where I stand back to look at the work and ask: did I make a beautiful picture?