There have always been two predominent and recurring subjects in my work - the formless and light.

The entropic pouring process that I use in my painting unites with the autonomy and spontaneity of the process to produce works that are seemingly beyond the known. They maintain the tradition of painting and its process, but seek to engage and invite the viewer to free the mind from what it automatically thinks it knows. In their beauty, the paintings at first mislead the viewer. It is easy to see what one wants to see. But freedom can only come when the mind is able to admit it is not free and take action to change that. In order to see into and beyond these paintings, the mind must do that. Only then will the true nature of abstract art be discovered.

As a conclusion to the essay 'Formless: A User's Guide' (1999, MIT Press), Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind E Krauss tell us that "it is [their] position that the formless has its own legacy to fulfill, its own destiny - which is partly that of liberating our thinking from the semantic, the servitude to thematics, to which abject art seems so thorougly indentured" p252.

This year, I travelled to Peru and walked for seven days along the Inca Trail arriving at Machu Picchu on a gloomy and overcast day. Standing at the southern gate high above the ruins, the sun began to slowly push through the clouds. Within a short period of time, Machu Picchu was suddenly flooded with light and the power of the sun was overwhelming. It was one of the most moving moments of my life and I wanted to delve deeper into the Inca culture and the reasons for building these incredible and complex temples of worhip to the sun and the stars. To discover where the mind is capable of going when the world in which our bodies exist is challenged.

My current research is based on this enquiry and seeks to place the ideas within the contemporary world. The consequent effect of this enquiry on my studio practice is displayed here as it progresses