My love of art (and particularly painting) seems to stem as far back as I can remember. I started drawing and painting as a very young child – as soon as I could hold a pencil and brush, really (using water-colours to begin with, followed by oils at age eleven, and acrylics at age nineteen.

I started exhibiting and selling my work from the age of fifteen. Ruins in the landscape were my first influence as an artist, and have remained my specialism, and passion. I am both fascinated and moved by the romanticism of historical, emotive ruins – especially castles and gothic mansions; but also smaller, domestic buildings of architectural merit.

The predominant feelings which I strive to express through my art are those of desolation, loss, and a sense of pointless destruction and waste. This partly stems from my childhood in Liverpool, when I witnessed the dereliction and sometimes, demolition of many beautiful old buildings – some of which were designated ‘slums’ at the time. Such mindless vandalism, and the emotive, desolate atmosphere and aesthetic appeal that historical ruins hold for me, informs my work; and I express my pictorial representation of the same, through my paintings.

My parents encouraged both my art – by buying me a plentiful supply of materials and books on art and architecture; and love of ruins – by visiting (mainly Welsh) castles and stately homes.