I make art because I like to fantasize. I'm taken with the storybook idea that there's a hidden space just around the edges of reality and like to imagine this space as a kind of distorted version of our own, where objects, people, actions and gestures are twisted and re-assembled into new shapes and meanings. I'm interested in placing familiar elements in alien settings, creating incongruous or uneasy relationships and associations. Themes of disguise and deception, a fluid notion of identity, of the real world bleeding through into the fantasy, or vice-versa.

I take a lot of influences from films and comics, I love the drama of deep, rich shadows combined with the bold shapes and lines of comic panel. This also seems to fit the choice of much of the imagery that I'm drawn to, with allusions to toys, the fantastic and historical/military fragments common to genre story-telling.

Although beginning as a painter I now work almost completely digitally but have retained most of the same method and approach to an image, combining photographic and collage elements with drawing techniques transposed from the brush to the digital pen. I build the images up layer on layer with things being added, removed, hidden and revealed and texture developed in much the same way as I would make a physical work but with the added benefits of digital media. The compositions are often built in a semi improvisational manner through daydreams and free association of objects and images.

Recently, by exploring a digital workspace, a more photographic approach has emerged, alongside the more painterly part of my practice, sharing the same themes and influences. This is something I'm eager to develop further in the future.