I made this 4x4feet oil painting series in a space of a week, ...the work deals with visual bombardment of the senses..the experience we have when in the heart of a large bustling cosmopolitan centre anywhere in the world, in this instance stood as a tourist in the middle of Times Square in New York on a warm August morning.
This shows the series against the Airy Hill Studio wall and the multiplicity of imagery that has been used making the images caustrophobic and direct, they also attempt to displace everyday symbols and by means of juggling them in and out of context present questions to the viewer. They were not intended to be a narrative, more in a visual interplay with audience and artist....the fall of the bitten apple could symbolize the flaws in modern day technology or the string of red love hearts could represent suffering endured post 9/11......the topics and issues in the works serve to ask questions and the subject matter is far too complex for me to attempt to unpick in a short dialogue/critique slot here.
I remember a few years ago I saw the early paintings of Marc Chagall in New York and the memory of the richness of colour and strange dreamlike disslocation within the picture-plane stayed with me. The images here are not of quiet villages and floating figures in coloured robes but I wanted the vibrancy of colours and gentle distortion and abstraction of shapes.....the difference is that these were produced in 2006 and employ a culmination of icons and symbols of our time.

Five years ago I came to New york and took a series of photographs of Times Square...back in England I made a number of works and sketchpads from the visit but it has taken until now for me to visit the subject with any real purpose....