When I was 19, I hitchhiked through the Middle East, painting the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome. When I returned to England, I had an exhibition, while each country I visited had a revolution.

The impetus behind my work has shifted subtly over the past five years. My original aspiration ‘to paint classical civilisation’ has developed into a belief in a kind of modernist philosophy. For me, the act of making the work has become the subject, and any ‘realism’ is used to affect the viewer’s understanding of the work as a flat, painted surface.

My work examines the relationship between painting and other modes of expression by questioning the traditional hierarchies of each medium. This results in a desire that the finished work should be seen primarily as a relic of its own artistic process.