"11pm to Stonehaven" forms part of a series of works entitled "Sephaville."  My intention with Sephaville has been to introduce an ensemble of characters, locations and motifs that create a self-contained and self-referencing narrative.  The resulting pictorial fables aim to provide a range of associations that extend beyond the shackles of text-based fiction.  For example, one image may contain a foreground formation of figures that resembles a flock of birds hidden in the background of another one, thus indicating a sense of some underlying order within the world being created.  

Birds, nudes, harlequins, ballet dancers, antiquated technology and night-lit buildings are used to present a series of paradoxes that hover between the rational and irrational, relating to magical-realist fiction. I like the idea that something can be unbelievable but, on closer inspection, is capable of being rationalised into the everyday. Books such as One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter have helped to inspire my interest in this notion. With this philosophy in mind, much of the imagery is developed from commonplace spectacles such as birds, trains and other wonders that reach beyond the limits of our own relatively immobile bodies. This has also led me to evoke images from silent cinema, where actors might stand atop a train or falter along a window ledge. These antiquated images can seem quaint today, and bring the same sense of nostalgia, innocence, and escapism as a fairytale. The very act of representational drawing and painting might be described as a quaint spectacle of human achievement. I have tried to emphasise this sense of spectacle further through adding a high level of miniature detail to the artworks, with the aid of map pens and acrylic ink.

The theatricality of Sephaville's scenes helps to make plausible further fantastical feats, helping to signify that the images represent illusions rather than miracles. This aspect to the work is suggested through the use of dancers and one-point perspective that feature in many of the compositions. Perspectives role in constructing a sense of narrative is a growing area of interest for me, influenced somewhat by the past innovations of the Pre-Raphaelites. My part-time work as a Drawing Technician for Norwich University College of the Arts has required that I research perspective and how to draw virtual environments by hand via plan projection. In my future compositions I intend to put this research into practice and create entire cityscapes.

born: 1980, United Kingdom

education

Central St Martins College of Art and Design, BA, 2003
Norwich School of Art and Design, Foundation Diploma, 2000

selected awards/honors

Artist-In Residence, Anteros Arts Centre, 2009
Staff Award, presented in acknowledgement of the artist's contribution as a demonstrator to the College's Drawing Workshop, Norwich University College of the Arts, 2008
Artist-In Residence, Aberdeen Arts Centre, 2007
Experimentation Award (shortlisted artist), Belltable, 2007

selected publications

"Magical-realist painter makes himself at home in Norfolk," Artists & Illustrators, The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, UK, p, 8, February 2009
Divided Line, Ed. Laura Williams, Art18/21, UK, p. 2-3, p. 10-15, 2008
The Artist in Our Midst, Ed. Ruby Ormerod, Green Pebble, UK, p. 49, p. 77, 2008
"Cultural Explosion," East Magazine, East Publishing, UK, p. 60 - 61, August 2008

selected solo or two-person shows

Artist-in-Residence Exhibition, Anteros Arts Centre, Bergh Apton, Norfolk, UK, 2009
Sephaville, portraits & early works, Norwich Playhouse Gallery, Norwich, Norfolk, UK, 2008
Early works, Window Galleries, Elm Hill, Norwich, Norfolk, UK, 2008
Artist-in-Residence Exhibition, Aberdeen Arts Centre, Aberdeen, UK, 2007

selected group shows

Hallelujah, The Modern Artists Gallery, Whitechurch-on-Thames, Berkshire, UK 2008
Divided Line, Art 18/21, Norwich, Norfolk, UK 2008
Cork Street Open Exhibition, The Gallery in Cork Street, London, UK, 2008
Artistes en Résidence, Gallery No 9, Marciac, France 2008