I like to deal with material that is local, exploring the figure and the landscape as subjects. I don’t use photographs; I paint exclusively from observation and I feel that painting is a fusion of my subconscious and the outside world. I regularly go out into the landscape and usually work on the same motif over a period of weeks or months. I will work on the same canvas until I think I have something that excites me. This will entail returning to the subject at the same time of day in similar weather conditions, working for one or two hours in a session. I want my paintings to be a record of a personal struggle, an exploration that sometimes never reaches a conclusion. The outcome is affected by external elements such as the weather or how I feel. In all of this, drawing from the motif is the key, the image being thus transformed by my experiencing the subject over a period of time. I will complete a Fine Art Degree at Blackburn in June this year and was elected as a member of Manchester Academy of Fine Arts in 2010.