This is named after my youngest son.  He is forever looking to other places, he is demanding and strong willed and always knows what he wants; even when it is contrary to what everyone else in the family wants.  His curiosity and faith in himself often over whelms any natural self preservation which most of us rely on to keep us safe.

This painting is created over three layers.  The first most inset layer is the road.  It is as if the road is carved out of the world around it and all that stands on the road is a young child.  The landscape around the road is scattered with obstacles, each one of these is cut out by hand and painted, then reinserted into the layer of wood.  The street lights are on the third layer of the painting.  The black structure of the lights are one piece of wood, the lights are cut out, painted and replaced.  The child is standing on the road, layer one, he over laps the mapped world around him and becomes the most forward part of the painting as he minuetly further than the lights around his path.

The child is showing us that he will not be able to stay on the defined road, that the world is calling.  At first glance he may appear to be asking to change direction, but his body language and the expression quickly shows that his mind is already made up.

The painting measures  545mm x  545mm, depth: 20mm

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time. -Rabbinic saying

“What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!”
― Victor Hugo

I find that staring at this painting only makes it more confusing, ¨beauty is in the eye of the beholder¨ – but will we ever know what beauty someone else is focusing on?

This is a real criss cross of ideas, I was inspired by the most wonderful road system I saw on a ariel photograph, however, at the time of creating it the news was full of the ebola crisis and somehow the two ideas merged to create Spaghetti Virus.

My son loved this so much that he asked for it to be named after him.  I hope that when any child leaves their perfect secure worlds that they head into something at least as wonderful.

The colourful world of the child is created on the first layer of wood.  This wood is cut by hand into the different shapes, each shape is then painted and carefully reconstructed to build the technicolour world.  The child, is a dressed in black and on a second layer, the path he walks on starts in the technicolour world and leads him out of the painting.  His placement suggests that he is leaving for another segment of life, an unknown outside of his current world, the slight angling on the body reminds us that even when we want to progress there is trepidation in our steps.

The painting measures 535mm x 535mm ( depth: 25mm), is is in a custom made frame and is one of a pair along with Thomas

¨Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!¨

This painting has changed name several times, but I finally settled on Bad Neighbour.  The street is from a village in the Gers which was in the territories fought over by the English and French.  The French named certain villages as bad neighbours, ie English….. These names stayed and `mauvais voisins’ became Mauvezin.

This painting is over three layers of wood and measures width: 550mm x height: 705mm x depth: 20mm