What am I trying to achieve? Firstly I want to produce work that does not rely on slickness for its appeal. When visiting a gallery I like to find a certain quality of thought, and character in a painting, and what I like for myself I aim to create for others. If you live with a picture it has to sustain a long relationship. Once the immediate impressions have been deciphered, there need to be other levels of thought and visual effect still to be discovered. Good art has its own quiet way of stirring the mind and emotions of the viewer again and again, reminding us that there are always new ways of perceiving and enjoying the world. I find it a miracle that anything exists at all. I want to let creatures have a voice. Something can be accomplished simply by hard work. I try to walk the extra mile in producing my paintings, and the larger ones usually take months to complete. I sometimes use a magnifying glass because I want people to be able to enjoy more and more sensitive detail as they come closer to the picture. I know it can be fun to have a painting which dissolves into a whirl of coloured flecks and chaos as you come near, but only the very greatest skill can achieve this in such a satisfying artistic manner that the fun does not wear off. Instead, just as people find with any interest they love, whether gardening or traveling, or collecting antiques, detail becomes more desirable with acquaintance.

It is not, however, a form of photographic realism that I am after. I don't mean simply the accumulation of a jumble of little facts, but detail in the sense of depth of pattern and structure so that there are layers of perception. I am not seeking only surface effects. I want to interact with the subject and bring the viewer with me. A poet or songwriter does the same. When successful, the effect of this detail, as for example in the rocks of the cliffs at Flamborough Head, or the pebbles on the beach at Budleigh Salterton, can be quite compelling, even mesmerising. My wife and I have known people stare at these paintings, or the large portraits, for an hour or more. One person who made a purchase reported back that he sits in front of it for half an hour every day, and always finds something more to appreciate. For obvious reasons it is impossible to place the full digital files on the website, so it is difficult to convey the cumulative satisfaction and textural pleasure created by the richness of detail some of these pictures contain, let alone the size. However this detail from the painting "Sisters" is magnified three times and therefore gives some indication to illustrate the point.

As for artistic inspiration, I think that mainstream Anglo-Dutch art has been the preponderant influence. Vermeer, especially, has been a model for how to combine mathematical harmony with human endearment. I value the way he engaged with contemporary scientific study, employing, for example, the camera obscura to examine a scene. He demonstrated that it is possible to lift scientific observations into the realm of painting without in the least succumbing to mechanical superficiality. If anyone asks what art can do after the invention of the camera, I would point right back to Vermeer. Moreover on a philosophical or religious level his art offers illuminating insights. (See article on Woman Weighing Pearls).

But to narrow the list of influences is to make comparisons by default, which can be invidious. Who has not been influenced in some way by the French impressionists? I do not seek to emulate their speedy conquest of the fleeting moment, but their colours, their wonderful juxtapositions so that one colour makes another sing, this I appreciate. For most of the last century English art circles were in such thrall to continental developments that few people knew how much the French Impressionists owed to the pioneering work in England of landscape artists such as Crome, Cotman, and Constable, Turner and the early Pre-Raphaelites. When Holman Hunt's "Strayed Sheep" was shown in Paris in 1855 it caused a minor sensation. His brilliant light and use of purples and blues in the shadows became foundational features of Impressionist art. But, for the most part, what the French Impressionists did not aspire to was the fidelity to texture and detail that Hunt's painting contains.

So all in all I think that English artists have inspired me most. I have restored a lot of nineteenth century paintings and have grown to respect the integrity, love of nature, firm structure, and poetic beauty that often is in them. I would be happy for my work to be seen as a small contribution to the long history of English art, which at times has risen to the heights of European accomplishment, but which even on a homelier level, has added beauty to the world. Once, when living abroad in a difficult place, a passion to draw and colour seized me, and when I had done I realised that it had all burst out from memory and from deep inside to nourish the link with home. If any of my pictures please expatriate English people who want reminders of an English way of seeing the world, I would be very gratified.

Finally there is the question of faith. Historically most of the art of mankind has been linked closely either with religious beliefs, or with political or cultural ideology, or all three, for the very obvious reason that fine art, as opposed to merely decorative art, is concerned with ways of understanding the world. I am a Christian (hopefully in the style of C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity,") and elsewhere I try to explain why, but in my artwork I want to celebrate what I see. I am not trying to glorify art for art's sake, nor to promote a sectarian point of view, yet I do believe that the world - including ourselves - is a creation, not an accident, and that both the artist and the scientist can glorify God by studying fragments of it with respect. Both matter and spirit are present to our senses and faculties, and whilst highly regarding the physical dimension, and following leads that give joy, I seek to paint with a sense of wonder.

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