My works have become increasingly stage, multiple figures and sequential imagery set upon a theatrical stage set.

I tihnk i have only recently reaslied how improtant Jacques Louis David has been for me in the construction of the staged space. The manner in which he organises the events, setting figures against solid and cafefully ocmposed architectural backdrops is something i have borrowed. It allows David to direct the figures, it also allows him to split the canvas up into carefully controlled areas, often with a direct reference to the pictures frame.

 I think ‘The Blue Lady and Him’ (2008) was the first of my works which I organised in what i would call a Davidian way.

It seems this enables a discussion to be opened up between two oppositions, both of which are intrinsic to painting as an art.

The first is the painterly surface and process.  The celebration of the paint as a linguistic tool, a sign with a multiplicity of references, is something which is central to my practise. There is a whole history of painters to whom any painterly artist looks to. From Titian, through Rembrant, Goya, Turner,  Delacroix, Manet, Bacon, Rothko, Pollock and a number of contemporary painters. These painters are those to whom the substance itself, that sticky oil mess, is so crucial.

These painters are loosely labelled under a banned of romanticism.

In opposition to these painters are a group of artist’s we loosely label as classical, or neo classical. From Michelangelo, Poussin, David and Mondrian. Painters for whom the construction of space itself seems the central tennant of their work. painters for whom the intellectual planned of design, of composition and line is the foundation on which all else is built.

 Historically it is the located as a battle between Central Italian Renaissance and the Venetian rival, as design vs colortio (the act of painting, not colour itself), as Titian vs Michelangelo.

 Creating such a clear polemic and divide is false. The binary oppositions exist in eachof the painters mentions worked. None of the baove are singular, solely focused on design on the surface. What is created is a dialogue.

What has become improtant for me is the construction of a clearly laid down composition and design. A space rigourously organised and dividied up. The staging of a play if you like. The painting of the picture becomes the acting out of the performance. it is able to have adlibbed and inpromtue passages becasue it can be afforded a poetic liscence by the solidity of the structure below.