Artist Statement

I am interested in animals not simply as subjects, but as forms of presence.

My work continues a tradition of animal imagery that began with the earliest marks made on cave walls. Those images were direct and essential—animals understood not as decoration, but as powerful presences within human life.

I am interested in that ancient gaze: the instinctive connection between humans and the untamed world. I strip the animal back to essential forms, allowing areas to remain unresolved and leaving space for the viewer to complete the image.

Working in oil with brush and palette knife, I build and remove layers, searching for a balance between representation and abstraction. Line, colour, surface and composition are as important to me as the animal itself.

I am less interested in describing an animal than in creating a painting. By resisting the romanticized image of wildlife, I hope the work retains something raw, immediate and elemental—something that reaches beyond the individual animal toward our much older relationship with the natural world