Most of my work is imaginary and fairly abstract inspired by biomorphic and musical themes as well as the diversity of landscape and atmospheric conditions of Pembrokeshire. I find that my work has become freer and more rugged and has lost some of its fixation with detail . I dont use stylus pens and fine brushes as I used to. Digital technology does this far better, leaving the painter with more rugged media to play with

It takes a while to develop the paintings, often several months or even years before deciding on whether they are effective in achieving the required tone. I still have some pieces that I started in my mid teens, not yet completed.

The contemporary ideas that inspire me most are evolution, chaos theory and quantum physics, and of ancient philosophers: like Lao Tsu, founder of Taoism. My favorite period in Western Art is the first half of the 20th century, particularly the work and ideas of Kandinski and Klee for their synthesic qualities, and Bonnard for his liberated and sensuous colour.

Inevitably the web has drawn me back into the technical side of computing, in the form of programming language development. This has its own kind of abstract beauty of logic and maths - quite hard to grasp for those who are not directly involved in it. But the brain cannot handle abstractions in isolation, it has to derive its symbols, ultimately from the physical world, which we are all adapted to deal with.

Geodesic Domes and Faces of the Sphere


9th-28th October 2008
An exhibition of paintings and dome models
Nant-y-Coy Arts, The Watermill, Trefgarne Gorge Pembrokeshire, SA62 5LR. UK
http://www.nantycoy.co.uk
gallery@nantycoy.co.uk

I took an interest in electronics and after an initial spell in printed circuit board design, I did some microprocessor work for GEC Electrical Projects - Marine, then Porpoise Viscometers in Rugby. After this, I worked for Intermediate Technology, a Third World development organisation founded by F Schumacher, (Author of 'Small is Beautiful'), looking after computerisation including software and database development.

I started painting again and moved back to Fishguard in 1998, to a house near the coast path , and close to where I was brought up. I spent some of my time assisting Myles Pepper at the West Wales Arts Centre, where I had the pleasure of plying some of my IT skills as well as painting.

In the late 90's I bacame interested in 3d digital graphics and how it could be applied to architecture - as well as purely imaginary structures. After tentatively planning an extension to my house with an architect friend, (and getting a taste of planning controls) my attention turned to the work of Buckminster Fuller. In particular his Geodesic domes. This became my millenium project. Grasping the geometry of these structures with limited maths skills took quite a while but after a few years I was able to model these both manually and in digital 3D. The main problem was to divide the curved surface into perfectly fitting flat squares, hexagons and pentagons.

I built some of these as frames, using very simple materials: 100mm*22mm planks of timber screwed together to form flat frames which were 'stitched' together with interlocking screw heads. But there are so many designs to explore that most of my models remain on the computer but, I have made a selection of these as cardboard models.

Apart from Geodesic domes, my long standing interest is in computer languages which stems from early encounters with various home computers like the Commodore PET and the BBC micro. - I have developed an assembler for the PC called 'Oxygen' for writing very high speed code. In its current form this is deployed as a module for thinBASIC, a free interactive system for programming in BASIC. Our informal team enjoys the benefits of working collaboratively over the web for very rapid development.