Bio
I was born in London, and from the age of three through to eighteen lived in Quito, Lisbon and Vienna.
My father was Scottish and my mother was French; from them I absorbed something of their respective cultural backgrounds and thanks to a childhood lived overseas was fortunate to have been exposed to 'abroad' and 'foreigners' not as a tourist but as a citizen.
In Quito at the age of around four I had my first sight of an artist's studio when I was regularly taken by my mother to see Jan Schroder, a Dutch artist who had made Ecuador his home and who although a member of the expatriot community had been one of the few Europeans in those days to value the art of the indigenous population. I went to the same school as Paula Rego in Lisbon, although a good many years later, where I discovered the art of deflecting bullies through entertaining them with drawings and cartoons of the teachers.
Later, living in Vienna, as a fairly solitary adolescent I began to haunt the magnificent galleries in that city
on my way back from school and at the weekends. I think I decided then that Art, in some form, was to be the path ahead for me.
I went to Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art at a time when David Talbot Rice was the Professor of Fine Art at the University and William Gillies the Principal at the College. I owe a lot to them for the Fine Art course they devised apparently one day when out walking together, lamenting the fact that so many young artists were ignorant of their artistic heritage, while the art history students received little guidance in the practical means by which artists arrived at their results. Literally, in the practice of art.
The University prepared me for an Academic career and the Art College for the more slippery slopes of becoming a practising artist.
I chose the latter though am grateful for the academic skills and education I received from the former, giving me the tools to engage in occasional critical writing, teaching and lecturing posts earlier in my career.
Since the 1970's I have lived and worked in both London and Suffolk with frequent stays in France and elsewhere, often associated with seeking inspiration, source material or simply time to think.
I have worked as a teacher, lecturer, illustrator, graphic desiger, muralist, and trompe l'oeil artist, but most consistently it has been as a painter that I have derived the greatest satisfaction. I have held over 20 one-woman shows, most of these with the Thackeray Gallery and Piers Feetham Gallery in London. There have been others in Paris and in Suffolk and I continue to exhibit regularly.
Elected to the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) in 2011