// Artist Statement

Cape Town is located around a huge national park where natural beauty and awe-inspiring landscapes are hard to ignore. Having been born and raised in the metropolis of London, Cape Town was literally a breath of fresh air. The ability to be on the side of a mountain, 5 minutes from my home, engulfed in the flora and fauna that comes from it being one of the six Floral Kingdoms on Earth is both fortunate and life changing. The ability to take oneself away from human settlements and spend time in nature is vital. Nature is as honest as it gets and holds all of the answers we look to acquire. I found myself gravitating towards artists who hold this knowledge. The harshness of life and the ever-changing state of the world is hard to ignore. These nature based painters seemed less troubled and at ease with all that was being throwing at them. When I was a young boy, my grandfather, Harold, taught me the basics of how to hold a paintbrush and apply oil paints to a canvas. He was a fabulous landscape painter and a gentle grandfather. To spend time in nature; to walk, stand, sit, or lie, or to paint what is around you is perhaps the deepest meditation available. The morning and the evening bring with them delicious shadows and it was these shadows that inspired me in the first place to start a collection of inspiring imagery on my phone. Having never been taught how to paint properly (apart from lessons at school) it was a light-bulb moment when I realised that shadows can - and more often than not do - play a central role in an image. The colours that can be seen within these shadows tell stories of what has come before or what is soon to take place. Sometimes the subtleties between light and shadow call for them to be painted, whether that be in an urban or rural setting. I look forward to continually attempting to capture this magic for years to come.