About

 

About the work

 

I was born in Prague in the Czech Republic in 1960. After schooling in Scotland, I studied at St Martin’s School of Art for one year (1978-9). The following year I began studies at The Slade School of Fine Art and graduated in 1984. I moved to America from London in 1995, and have lived in Vermont since. After taking a break from art-making to study Buddhism, I have been painting since 1999. I have had solo exhibitions and been included in group shows since graduating from art school.

 

I try not to think too hard about the choice of subject matter. Something captures my attention, and I trust the “First thought, best thought” quality of the process. I don’t need to be in a special state of mind in order to paint, my experience is that when I paint, I am ushered into a special state of mind. I can speak of this as, “being in the zone” or, care-free absorption, or grace. In this state my anxieties and a sense of apartness soften. I may enter into a state of communion with what I perceive. There appears a seamless continuum between feeling and felt object. I enjoy this state of being. I could almost say that I live for it, live to be in it, and to serve it. For me this state is all that is required in order to perform work as an art maker. My due diligence needs only to concern itself with whether I am able to access this state of being, or not. Within it all considerations: technical, aesthetic, thematic, material and otherwise assume a place and proportion. The whole is in relationship to the parts, and visa versa. A world is created and laid out against all other possibilities, all other choices. Before, during and after the work, thoughts, associations, juxtapositions, and ideas emerge. In a carefree state, these do not become over bearing, rather assume the habit of cloth lightly worn. Nothing is nailed down. Directions and flow move easily.