The south of France is such a cliché for painters. Artist such as Matisse and Van Gogh always describe how the light, colour and the blazing sunshine inspired their paintings.
How can a contemporary artist respond to these locations and make it new? After several failed attempts to respond to this part of the world I realised that the ‘night time’ and the use of artificial light offered me an opportunity to re-visit these locations and deal with them in way that emphasised their artificiality and constructed nature.

Tuscan Icons

These paintings are a fusion of holiday brochure swimming pools and Renaissance Landscape paintings. The paintings are an exploration of how our experience of nature and landscape are constructed through culture.
The paintings represent a middle class fantasy that combines exclusive Italian villas within easy reach of cultural centres such as Siena or Arezzo.
The pool pictures in brochures are always very deep blue and have dramatic perspectives. The paintings are painted on golden supports, suggesting panels from altarpieces
that might be seen on a Tuscan holiday.