I spent my childhood in Lowestoft, Suffolk, a small town by the sea where every day the light pours down from above and illluminates the world in every perfect detail. After attending Sheffield City Polytechnic and the University of Leicester, where I studied Communications and Mass Media, I settled down to spend my time working and trying to write a novel. After some years I realised I needed something more and began to paint. My partner at that time was at art college so I kind of lived life as an art student by proxy. From the beginning I was drawn by the work of the photorealists and figurative artists such as Edward Hopper and Lucien Freud, and, although I have experimented with other styles and genres, I feel I have remained pretty much true to my beginnings. At first I painted landscapes, but as I found the confidence to deal with the human body, my focus shifted to people, generally set in context, as I believe humans are just as much an expression of the world around them as they are of themselves, the two being indivisible. At first this context tended to be artificial, but of late I have found myself focussing more and more on natural surroundings and objects, whilst at the same time never losing sight of the sheer strangeness of the world we have made for ourselves.