In April 2024 I visited Riga with the purpose of seeing the Art Nouveau buidings. I was amazed to discover not only the variety of styles which came under the umbrella classification of Art Nouveau, and also to discover that the originator of the idea in Latvia was a Russian engineer, Michael Eisenstein, the father of the filmmaker, Sergei. This painting is of the top of a building in the remarkable city

Who doesn’t love a sunset? Admittedly this was from a photograph, but I just loved the way that the trees were silhouetted against this wonderful colour range.

As the land rises behind our garden I noticed one cold morning how the shadows of the trees surrounding the field were blue on the frosty grass and also how the frost had touched the tops of the winter trees. I took a photograph before the sun changed the landscape, and this is the result.

This sunset image is based on the lily pond at Knightshayes in Devon, which has a magnificent garden.

This car is in a garden close to Hatton Cross tube station.The locale consists of 30s house, not very inspiring, so I ” demolished” them and painted a neglected orchard which is in our village instead.

On the outskirts of our village there was a stucco covered bungalow. A conversation with my doctor many years ago elicited the information that this was actually a railway carriage inside, and Mr Livermore, the father of one of our cricket acquaintances, lived there. He died a few years ago and the site was abandoned, but at the end of 2020 I noticed that a metal fence had been erected around it, and the stucco removed, revealing not one but two railway carriages, one behind the other.
I had to work from photographs, as the site was inaccessible. This painting is of one of the carriages; it is possibel to glimpse the fridge through the door, and the original Smoking sign on one of the carriage windows.

This painting was a commission resulting from a friend having seen the pink bike painting. The commission was of a bike which her daighter and husband ride in the woodland between Bristol and the welsh border.

This year, 2020, Southampton City Art Gallery proposed an open exhibition entitled In Search of a New World.
This is a commemoration of the Pilgrim Father’s ” discovery” of the USA.
My painting ( one of two) combines a reference to one of the two ships which set sail combined with a map of the landing site and an image of the replica of the Mayflower.
The tribe which was living in the vicinity of the landing site used specific designs form their textiles. I have used the design to flank the ship image.

This year, 2020, Southampton City Art Gallery proposed an open exhibition entitled In Search of a New World.
This is a commemoration of the Pilgrim Father’s ” discovery” of the USA.
My painting ( one of two) combines a reference to one of the two ships which set sail combined with a map of the landing site and an image of a boat of the period;
( it was not possible to find a good image of the actual Speedwell.)

This painting is a response to a photograph which I took when we were in Vietnam.
We were taken to Nimh Binh to see the paddy fields and the wonderful odd shaped mountains. This girly coloured bike, which obviously belonged to one of the many people working in the fields, caught my attention.

This tractor, circa 1960, is on my friend’s farm in Kent.
The father of the farmer never threw anything away, he just abandoned things…and this is one of the things he abandoned.
As such it fitsnin with my love of abandoned vehicle.

This van was burnt out one night in 2019 , possibly by a rival.
It was parked behind a Georgian building which was damaged in the fire.
As happens, the fire produced wonderful colours and textures in the van itself and also on the wall behind it.
An unexpected consequence of the fire was the the rendering on the buildimg was taken away, revealing an older building underneath.,

This is the final Dresden demolition drawing. It is much more abstract than the preceding two.
It could be any building anywhere, but it reminds me of the noise and smell I encountered of decades of a structure which is coming to the end.

This is the first of a series of drawings made from photographs taken in Dresden in Spring 2019. This communist era building was being gradually and slowly demolished, revealing all its innards. This contrasts with the buildings growing up around London glimpsed from the train, whereby the internal lift shaft is the first element to be seen, gradually replaced by more decorative elements.

Having spent time in Dresden in the Spring of 2019 I was able daily to document through photographs the demolition of a very solidly built Communist era building.
This drawing is one of a series which show stages of the demolition. It links with the broken down vehicles and derelict buildings which I have been recording over the years. The reason for all of these images stems from seeing Buddhist prayer flags in the Himalayas, which flap in the wind until they decay. I like the idea of objects having a finite life in a variety of ways.

One of my interests is the way in which nature takes back man made objects; in this instance, the police took it away.

This is one of a series of three small linked paintings which reflect the habitual dumping of vehicles in the countryside.
This particular transit van had been totally burnt out and only the internal structure was visible. The shattered windows showed the lush vegetation outside and the metal had changed colour to the most beautiful tans, blues and greys.

This mangle, originally a mottled blue, was found in an old shed when we moved to this house nearly forty years ago.
Our house originally had a communal wash house at the back of the terrace, so it may well date from that period.
It has subsequently been painted red and black, mostly to draw attention to the peace sign cast into the side panels.
Over the years , standing in all weathers, the wooden rollers have begun to deteriorate. Sadly there seems not to be a “spare parts for rollers” available so their demise will continue.

These two chairs were sitting under trees in gentle sunlight at Berrington Hall in Shropshire. The shadows cast on the pink fabric were so atmospheric, and the proximity of the chairs indicated a missing human presence.

This year ( 2018) was spectacular and these small cattle seen through the branches with the May as background were irresistable.

This 2017 painting is a follow on from the many garden paintings completed over the past few years. I realised that I had not included distance in any of the previous paintings; they all relied on the picture plane, so this is an attempt to show distance as well as the wonderful June flowers in the garden, combined with our recently painted table and chairs

This tree , heavily carved with romantic tributes, some of which the tree was taking back to itself was in the Botanical Gardens at the Paseo del Prado in Madrid.
I made a drawing of it there, and the painting, helped by a photograph has come later.

Blackberry bushes line the walkway through Marsh’s Fields and are site for an annual pilgrimage of blackberry pickers for some weeks. I have chosen to show the three stages of the berry, from flower, through the green berry to the fully ripe .

This rather romantic view of my neighbours’ cast iron chairs and table is a contrast with the overgrown field which has started to dominate the landscape .

From the Autumn garden, these two red berried plants are so dominant and beautiful.