My earlier work is concerned with the representation of the female form and the move away from realism. The ideas are based on the merge between the historic, romantic and contemporary representation of the female form. My starting point for any painting is from creative and imaginative aesthetics rather than traditional ones.

My influences range from Geisha Girls, Film Noir, Fashion Magazines to opulent palace interiors. I have utilised a gaunt of ready-made visual resources to explore contemporary manifestations of Venus. I use only porcelain faces and bursts of line to define my figurative imagery. This process of painting discovers new qualities by rubbing back marks. The females limbs are juxtaposed against an intensely wet ground, immersed in fluid stains of glossy dammar varnish.

Most recently my work has been influenced by the encrusted decorated objects of Art Nouveau. I have been collecting patterned imagery from fashion magazines and other found decorative surfaces, drawing upon the psychedelic poster designs of the movement in my canvases. In some pieces the pattern or paint gushes. Blossoms, petals, feathers and garlands of beads create an internal momentum, that bursts out of the composition. The technique allows layers of overlapping and interlocking.

The peculiarity and particularity of Art Nouveau is what interests me, from the glistening scales, petals and feathers, curiosities dredged from the depths of the sea to the images brought back from the exotics of the forest.
The difference in my images is that the images are culled from female consumer culture. The paintings explore the slick and disposable wit the crafted and the hand-made. The starting point of my paintings is always an oil pastel drawing. These marks are then washed back so the form becomes more suggestive. The simplicity and accidental qualities build up. I use pastel again to reinstate pattern and form. Then the layers of interlocking can be created using acrylic appliqué and collage techniques. Lipsticks, nail varnish and catwalk tresses are transformed into trendils, tentacles, wings, leaves and seedpods.