Freedom to dream through the power of paint

I was born in 1948 and took up oil painting in the winter of 2011/2012 when arthritis began to affect my joints and deprive me of the pleasure of playing the piano. I very quickly discovered that art is a great way of expressing your feelings about the world around you. I very much like strong contrasting primary colours interspersed with white and black. I like to create a variety of paintings that mirror the various aspects of the human condition. I have never understood for example, the hatred that some human beings seem to have for their fellow human beings based on no more than differences in ethnicity, religion, colour, nationality or culture and a host of other perceived reasons that seem to justify the seemingly never-ending desire for us to destroy each other. I have tried to reflect this aberration in the human condition in some of my paintings. Other paintings are of a gentler nature and celebrate the more positive aspects of being human. Of being young and of being old, at the start of life, in its progression and as it nears its end.

Echos from the past ... this watercolour is of me aged 33 and was done in 1982 by a work colleague of mine at the time who I have long since lost contact with. The pencil portrait was done by me on the back of a hotel dinner menu and is dated Wednesday 13th July 1977. If I remember correctly, it was a copy of an oil painting by a famous artist, perhaps 15th or 16th century, but I can't remember who. A 3-course dinner by the way, in 1977, cost £3.20 plus 8% VAT. Cona coffee with cream and After Eight mints was 30p extra.

I have no formal art training and am therefore on a steep learning curve, part of which involves copying well-known works of art, so apologies to the original artists dead or alive. Most of my paintings are very much influenced by others but they do not display the craftsmanship / draughtsmanship of a professional painter as I have neither the patience nor skill to spend hours and hours on one painting. I always have about half a dozen on the go at the same time to allow the paint to dry somewhat. I often decide to call it a day on a painting even if more could be done to it - time does seem to improve them, although that could just be wishful thinking.

If one of my paintings were on display with other people's work, then I would be more than happy if occasionally someone stopped, looked and thought for a moment about my painting. If they returned for a second or subsequent look, then I would be ecstatic, it would mean that I have communicated in some way with that person. If I were asked to say anything about my work I would just say "Stop, Look, Think" and leave it at that. If I had original ideas I'd be in the Tate myself or short-listed for the Turner Prize instead of pottering around in my garden shed with other people's ideas. One day the spark of originality may strike me from on high and I'll be rich and famous. Until that day comes, I will continue to beaver away unrecognized. If you are an amateur artist as I am, then I hope you get as much pleasure as I do out of creating something new that did not exist prior to picking up a paintbrush. As with music (live music is better than recorded), so a real oil painting is better than a mass-produced reproduction.

Work in progress

'Nighthawks after Edward Hopper' oil on canvas panel 30" x 20" - This is the project I am currently working on in August 2013. I find I'll probably go over all my paintings again over the next few years as I have a habit of not finishing them off properly before I start another one. I must have more patience but then time I guess is running out - I'm a lot nearer the end than the beginning.

Below are my Baconesque paintings that I am working on at the moment. I know the paintings are a bit 'weird' in some people's eyes, but I like Bacon's work and anyway I don't get the same spiritual satisfaction from painting landscapes and such like as I do from trying to capture the 'internal goings-on and thoughts' of people, however way you wish to interpret that statement.

'Three Studies of an Artist 2013' in the style of Francis Bacon 50cm x 40cm - Well here we go again, another painting or paintings, being sold to a very wealthy person for a silly sum of money. I love Francis Bacon and his work, but even his triptych 'Three Studies of Lucian Freud 1969' surely cannot be worth over $140 million can they? I suppose something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay and as each painting is 198 cm x 147 cm in size then I guess you do get a lot of canvas for your money. None of us will ever be able to afford to buy a real painting by Dali, Freud, Bacon or whoever. Likewise, very few of us will ever be able to travel to the various galleries around the world to see the originals. Those paintings that have been bought by oligarchs, princes, billionaires and such like will probably disappear into big houses, palaces, castles and yachts or into secure bank vaults never to be seen again unless they reappear briefly at some time in the future for the sole purposes of being sold on at an even higher price. When or where will it all end? As I don't like printed reproductions, the only solution for me if I want to have such paintings hanging on my own walls at home is to paint them, or something similar, for myself, and so I make no excuses for copying the works or style of other artists for my own collection. The triptych above at 50 cm x 40 cm I have called 'Three Studies of an Artist 2013 in the style of Francis Bacon'. It is not yet finished.

'A Canterbury Tale 2013' 150cm x 100cm - I first came across Francis Bacon in 1963 when I was about fourteen years of age and his work made a big impression on me. A teacher at my school must have shown us one of his pictures which I now realise was probably Painting 1946, so having rediscovered Francis Bacon 50 years later on from that impressionable early event, I have started doing my own version of Painting 1946 which I have called 'A Canterbury Tale 2013' (a title which I may change in the future). When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said recently that if you wear a cross as an item of jewellery, then you may just as well hang an electric chair or a gallows around your neck, as all three are gruesome instruments used for execution purposes, I was reminded of the grainy picture that was taken illicitly by the photographer Tom Howard of Ruth Snyder's electric chair execution at Sing Sing prison, New York on the 12th January 1928, which in turn reminded me of the Francis Bacon paintings of Pope Innocent X and others. Such images, plus other influences from Francis Bacon, have influenced the initial concept for my painting shown on the right. Again it is not finished. I know my work is not original, it may not even be any good, and I know many people might think me weird for liking, far less copying, the works of Francis Bacon, but I really don't care, I just keep on painting regardless, I simply can't stop painting as LS Lowry said, and it is only the limitations of the time it takes for my paintings to dry somewhat and the space available for me to work in and to store my work in, that stops me painting all God's waking hours.

'Vettriano 2020' 20" x 20" - I went all the way up from the midlands to Glasgow in September with my family to see the opening of the Jack Vettriano retrospective at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. Hoping to have a quick chat with him about self-taught painters, I tried to approach him (for he was there) but I think he thought I was a bit strange and walked away, so I just bought his book, got him to sign it, and then returned home to copy one of his paintings. I only had one blank canvas which measured 20 inches by 20 inches and so I copied The British are Coming which just happened to be that size. Well Jack, what do you think of it so far? Not as good as the original unfortunately - mind you, it's not finished yet - will I ever get any of my paintings finished?

Whatever you think of my paintings, either from an intellectual or a skills point of view, once they are deemed finished and are up on the wall, then they are at least made from real oil paint and not just from printers' ink - boom, boom!

The mind of the artist

'Aftermath' becomes 'Repossession'

The painting on the left Aftermath, is what eventually turned into Repossession - UK 2012. At the time I did not know in which direction the original was going to go in although I did suspect that its development would be influenced by Salvador Dali. Looking back at it now sometimes makes me wish I had left it as it was and simply started a new painting based on that original idea. It is obvious now that one idea could very easily result in many varied and different paintings, also that original ideas, even though painted over and turned into something quite different, could be revisited to produce a new painting. This I may do in the future.

'I Heard A Voice'

The painting above which I called I Heard A Voice, is one such painting that I will revisit, as I quite like the concept of a painting that echoes the loneliness and isolation often experienced even in such intimate surroundings as the terraced back-streets of a provincial town or city. Such a concept opens itself to many different interpretations. The painting on the right is what grew out of the painting on the far left via the painting in the middle. Now I am not sure which is the best, if any of them - they are all different but give fertile ground for future development.

In light of all the above, one wonders how artists managed before the days of digital photography, a technological advance that now allows you to chart the progress of a painting almost brushstroke by brushstroke - perhaps life was simpler in the old days when you could not easily recall how a painting looked several brushstrokes ago, or yesterday, or last week, as you can now if you so desire, by simply taking a photograph of it. Perhaps artists in the past planned their paintings more and then stuck to their plan like an engineer to a blueprint. I used to think how nice it would be if my canvas had an undo button just like my computer, but perhaps that way lies the road to insanity.

'The Pain - The Miracle - The Peace'

The above triptych about the creation of a new life is far from finished, but I want to continue with it until I am happy with the result, for I have a long, long way to go with it before it is completed to my satisfaction - these three paintings only show the initial idea, the concept. No matter how much chemistry, physics or biology you study, or how well-developed you believe your own intellect to be, the great miracle of life and indeed the very existence of matter and of the universe itself remains beyond human understanding. The concept that eventually our planet, our galaxy and the universe will no longer exist is an awesome and incomprehensible inevitability. Will matter and life, will energy, begin again, or is our existence a once-only event never to be repeated? You can talk of parallel universes, string theory, Higgs bosons and a host of other ideas and concepts until the end of time, whatever that is, but in reality, none of us will ever truly grasp the miracle of creation and its final demise in the small amount of time allotted before our own personal and inevitable demise.

As Francis Bacon the painter almost said - "Life is a beautiful, chaotic, yet creative consciousness, a brief meeting of inquiring minds, between two infinite voids" ... so make the most of it while it lasts - for you and me and everyone else, it will never happen again, enjoy every moment you spend with someone else, you will never meet them again once you, or they, are gone.

There is nothing new under the sun

"There is nothing new under the sun" as they say, and that is why I copy.

Originality is pretty much an unobtainable ideal for mere mortals, the pursuit of which can lead only to insanity. Elusive and ephemeral, it will only last for as long as it takes for the next person to tell you that it has all been done before.

I knew about the Ruth Snyder photograph, I knew about the acrylic painting by Malaquias Montoya, I knew about the Diego Velasquez Portrait of Pope Innnocent X as well as Francis Bacon's Screaming Popes paintings, and of course I knew about the Francis Bacon Painting 1946. What I was not aware of when I began writing up this blurb for my website, was the existence of the Damien Hirst painting Insomnia 2008 which to my horror looks a bit like my Canterbury Tale painting with its very similar windows - perhaps we all watched too much Playschool as children, and windows - round, square, triangular or oblong - are now part of our psyche.

Anyway, below is how my painting A Canterbury Tale evolved out of all the images shown, as well as the comment made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, about crucifixes and electric chairs.

So there we are - I think I'll start painting cute little puppy dogs and pretty flowers from now on.

Seriously though, much as I like puppies and flowers, I will still continue to paint what I hope are paintings that are a bit 'edgy', paintings that reflect the past as much as the present and the future, much of it based on photographs taken by newspaper reporters and photographers, paintings that reflect the human condition, both good and bad, the miracle of birth and existence, as well as the unfortunate inevitability of our own personal demise and oblivion which hopefully, for some of us anyway, is preceded by an intense period of a beautiful, chaotic creativity.

I really don't know if any of my work, now, or in the past, or in the future, is, or will be, any good. All I do know is that I will continue to paint.

Sometimes I think my work is quite good, then a moment later I think that it's all a load of old rubbish, just old hat, too cliched, only fit for the bonfire. I can well imagine a critic dismissing my work out of hand, and yet, at the same time, I can also imagine a critic waxing lyrical over the 'meaning' of some of my work - or is that just pretentious poppycock? Art is so up and down, so much elated highs followed very quickly by so many self-doubt-ridden lows ... but we carry on regardless, as I think I may have said somewhere else in this web-site.

Painting commissions sought

Although I am an amateur artist with a tendency to move on to a new painting before earlier ones are fully completed, I feel I would like to try a few commissions. None of my existing work is for sale as it is part of my own collection, but I would now like to paint for others. There is no obligation to purchase the completed work, if you are happy with the result and wish to make an offer I am sure a suitable agreement could be arranged.