Horses! Over the last few years these amazing animals have transformed my life.

Although I have always enjoyed drawing and painting, after leaving school on the Isle of Man in 1988, “life” happened to me and I forgot about art. I emigrated to Sweden, obtained a Bachelor of Science degree (with first class honours) and entered a career in system development.

In 2007 I accidentally rediscovered a passion for equestrianism – having ridden as a child – and the frustration of the times when I couldn’t be in the stable unexpectedly overflowed into my digging out an old sketch book and starting to draw horses. A chance meeting with a stable manager in 2008 whilst I was sitting in a field sketching led to an assignment to paint box signs for her stable of thirty horses, a long and repetitive task which proved an excellent method of improvement! One thing led to another as I began to study and reflect on painting, this time with adult eyes.

This experience provided me with an important insight into my motivation for painting: I can only find a subject interesting which provokes in me the feelings of power, elegance and beauty, and these I feel most readily in animals and nature. The feeling has to come first, and only then can I paint a subject.

Up to now I have only produced private commissions.  I am only able to take on a limited number of these each year due to time constraints, although my ambition is to expand the role art plays in my professional life, to which end I study in every free minute: practising drawing, painting, reading art books and following courses, and of course studying the works of other artists.  Learning and improving is a never-ending process, and I find enormous inspiration from both the old masters and modern, professional fine artists.

On this website I have included almost exclusively a selection of commissions I have painted in the last few years.