These paintings were created over the last seven years in Newcastle and Matlock after I had completed a Fine Art degree at the University of Northumbria. They are all oil on canvas.

The paintings are about the ways in which memories, images from screens and real life interact to form certain emotions; the way that a series of images viewed on a television that do not actually exist within the world can be seen as part of reality because they are something we have experienced. I try to represent this in my paintings in the way I use colour and space to create strange or uneasy environments for the figures to inhabit and also by simplifying or blurring certain elements to give the impression of a virtual or computer-generated reality.

The images in the paintings come from a variety of sources ranging from film frame captures and personal photographs through to details of video and board games as well as imaginary scenes from books and childhood memories. My aim is for the viewer to look at the paintings and see things that they half recognise or remember in a similar way that they would a dream, where ideas and images that make no sense are brought together in a subtle way that often seems normal at the time.

The starting points for my paintings are normally images from films, which are then manipulated and combined to create a new still image. Sometimes I will seek out certain images to fit ideas and other times scenes will just hit me that are perfect to paint. Generally though it is a combination of both that works the best. I try to get my source material from a wide variety of places to keep things interesting for myself. In the past I have depicted scenes or characters from Hitchcock films, Westerns, Horrors, Asian cinema and Hollywood blockbusters, as well as holiday photos, images from video games and ideas from books or dreams.

My work has been influenced and inspired by a large variety of artists. Some painters that I particularly admire are David Salle, Francis Bacon and Anselm Keifer. I have also been influenced by writers like William Burroughs, Bret Easton Ellis and Philip Pullman and their ideas of warped realities and strange worlds.