Aquatic Paintings. I have a passion for painting, deep-sea diving, photography, filming and hiking. I was born in England in 1941 and grew up in a small country village in the heart of the Hampshire Downs. My father instilled in me a keen interest in wildlife and the countryside. During some memorable summer holidays on the south coast, he encouraged me to go snorkelling, which gave me my first tentative insight into the underwater world.

These interests have remained with me throughout my whole life and have had a strong influence on my artistic development in painting landscapes and marine subjects. Having been blessed with a natural ability to draw, I have studied diligently over the years to understand and master the intricacies of composition, perspective, tonal relationships, and colour harmony. I strive to capture nature’s fleeting and illusive moments and to create the mood and ambiance of a scene. I have retired from a successful international business career and am now able to channel my creative energies into my art.

I started sub-aqua diving off of the south coast of England in 1963 and since then I have never tired of the experience of exploring the seas around the coasts of Europe and in more recent years, the tropical seas of the world. The thing that has sustained my interest in diving has been the study and filming of marine life. My early beginnings were with a homemade perspex camera housing that I built for my Super 8-movie camera, which was far more challenging than filming with my current HD DVD Video equipment and lighting system. Over the last 45 years, I have amassed a wealth of video films that now provide me with the reference material for my underwater paintings. Colour, tone and contrast diminish rapidly as you descend into the depths; red colours are quickly filtered out leaving green/greys and blue/greys. By adopting a more abstract approach to this environment, I want to capture the exhilarating sensation of diving and create a vibrancy that is anything but grey and sombre.