When I was a young I would spend hours sitting by rivers fishing and sketching. Water, and where land meets water, has always been special, maybe even spiritual, to me.
These days, many many years later, I live by the sea, on Dorset’s famous Jurassic Coast, and the magic of the water and of the coast, that liminal space again, has never left me.
The sea in particular is fascinating; constant but ever-changing, dividing us but connecting us. In the past it was easier to travel by sea than by land, nowadays it’s used as a barrier. It saved Britain during the Second World War but then led to just (only just) over half the population thinking we should be separated from Europe seventy years later. I hope one day the sea will again be seen as a connection, something that unites us all in this world, instead of a barrier that should be used to divide us.
The sea is the nearest we can get in this part of England to wilderness. The beach, the coast, is the transition from known to unknown, tame to wild. This view, even as we invisibly poison the water with plastic and pollution, hasn’t changed from thousands of years.
I want my work to show us the beauty and the wildness of the sea, to make our hearts sing at the possibilities the sea and the sky offer us, and to remind us that this beautiful world we inhabit is worth saving, is worth fighting for.
Originals, prints and cards of many of these pictures are available in the shop.