Biography

Born: 1976
1994-1995 Wimbledon School of Art - Foundation Course
1995-1999 Slade School of Fine Art, BA (Hons) Painting
2000-2003 MA in Fine Art Painting, The Royal Academy of Art

Exhibitions:
1999 Hong Kong Tourist Association, Albermale Gallery
2000 Summer Exhibition Cadogan Contemporary
2000 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2002 Summer Exhibition Cadogan Contemporary
2002 Premiums, Royal Academy of Art Group Show

Prizes:
1999 Hong Kong Tourist Association Open Competition
2001 Landscape Painting Award, The Royal Acameny of Art
2002 Premiums Award, The Royal Academy of Art

Artists Statement:
I have always considered myself as an aesthete and aesthetics play a predominant part in my work. Whatever the subject, my paintings are concerned with beauty and its appreciation of it. Growing up in Africa I've always been surrounded by the splendours of nature, its huge diversity of wildlife and fauna has provided me with the exotic compositions of colour and form. Moving to London made me romanticize about Africa and the idea of it, whether this was encapsulated in a landscape, a plant or animal. The shock on arriving in London was enough to make me see it as a sort of concrete jungle and I started a series of paintings composed of buildings devoid of human existance and atmosphere. I begun to search for the aesthetic qualities of buildings and houses by reconstructing, simplifying and cleaning them up and giving them an 'otherworldly' feel. In my constant search for beauty I was trying to extract this other world from them, exaggerating the colour and simplifying the surfaces and windows and roofs something which allowed me to compose an elaborate aesthetic interplay of blocks. I transformed the dirty smog covered buildings into smooth and glossy surfaces twisting reality into the way I saw it or more specifically the way I wanted to see it.