Long periods of introspection precede the act of making a painting. I have become increasingly interested in the challenge of executing each painting in one working session, which can sometimes be fast and dynamic and at other times extend over several hours. In this way I remain focused throughout on the intense physicality of the experience. I believe this approach of sustained active engagement maintains the emotional integrity of each work and is vital to the success of these paintings. The paintings evolve through an exploration of mark-making. The seismograph nature of this activity gives expression to my own embedded internal frictions and I find within each image a mirror for my own emotional frequency at a particular point in time. I explore the characteristics of line – balance, direction, velocity, thrust. The primacy of the tactile values of the medium and its innately expressive qualities is maintained. Some of the marks are made using actual organic materials – twigs, ferns, feathers – to apply the paint, making visual equivalents for the complex variety of natural forms. This process continues until the vibration of nature permeates the whole painting. A subtle stratigraphy develops – always working wet into wet. By keeping a constantly malleable surface in play, the whole painting has the appearance of being born simultaneously and of its own accord. The painting becomes like a fossil-bearing surface,revealing tracks and traces, a residual memory of things that are only there by implications. A mutation of the image occurs by handling the paint in ways that mimic or parallel the natural sequence of organic evolution or geological activity. The paint is animated and imbued with the spark and charge of life. Its substance becomes indistinguishable from that of nature. The painting eventually sets into its newfound form; freeze framed in time and motion. This is a point of unstable equilibrium where the contrasting states of resolution and quest co-exist. The main structuring force within my painting is rhythm. Rhythm creates a pulse and thereby generates energy, pace and momentum. The linear calligraphic element activates the surface and initiates a counter-rhythm. I create an echo, a poetic cross-reference that reverberates and implies the continuity of the image beyond the confines of the painting itself. This conjures a sense of the sequential, the fragment the snapshot of a wider reality yet to be explored. My work is in a sense a homage to the force of nature. The paintings function as a microcosm-a finely balanced and sustainable system where each of the complex variety of marks makes a vital and unique contribution to the success of the whole. A state of fragile stability is achieved between clarity and diffusion, between the relative density of substance versus space, between structure and chaos.