About me…
I would first like to say thank you for visiting my website, you didn’t have to click on this part to find out a bit about me, so thank you - I really appreciate it.
I am not a full-time artist, I do have a day job. I currently work within the print industry, which I find allows me to apply some of my artistic sensibilities as well as challenging me technically. I feel fortunate to enjoy my work, which is something that I know not everybody does.
Prior to this I worked within mental health services for close to 20 years. During this time, I was privileged to work with and support many amazing individuals through some dark and challenging times, and also share in their accomplishments and growth. Through my experiences, be it my working life or my personal life, I have found from conversations and observations a sense that sometimes we can feel lost. Sometimes we just want to feel safe, and that can take many forms - some of them, as I have found, not particularly obvious.
When I paint I tend to draw on my memories of conversations or moments that I have witnessed and try to weave a narrative form this in to a piece. Through my training in theatre design (many moons ago) I am used to trying to translate a sense in to a scene like it is a theatre set, thinking about how to manage the lighting to convey a mood, or to hint at a larger world taking place around the scene through perspective. I am not saying that this always conveys in to the final piece (sometimes what was in my head at the start isn’t necessarily what the finished piece echo’s) but my process is the same every time. I try to be thoughtful in what I am trying to depict and say.
I am always interested in someone’s response to my work, as often their interpretation is quite different to my intention, but ultimately my hope is that when looking at my work its voice finds you and I am always interested in what it said.
Stuart
