THE STUDIO

ARTIST STATEMENT

There’s something about painting that really excites me and that is the fact that it makes me feel connected early humanity. The way that we express ourselves through creating images and Mark making.

I’m not interested in painting something that already exists. The excitement of coming across something new and creating my own world is always an amazing feeling.

Freedom is the most important thing in life for all of us. I also like to work in different ways to give me that sense of freedom.

It’s important for me that my work has energy and an emotional pull, is something that really makes my purpose come together.
IAN RAYER SMITH

I focus on raw human expression. I’m always looking for the subliminal aesthetic, which is a constant visual exploration. Importantly, I never seek to represent reality. I always look for something that feels unreal or, if it may feel vaguely familiar, it is actually unrecognisable.
- I don’t have any fixed process or technique. I’m always working in many different ways. It enables me to combine different techniques. I’ll leave myself open to discovering more.
  This means that with the paintings I have in my studio sometimes something happens and then I realise that it can work on another painting that I have on the go. And so, in a way, a lot of my inspiration comes from my previous work.
- Painters have always borrowed from the past but should produce art for the era in which they live. For me, inspiration comes from so many different places and experiences. Over the years I’ve been inspired by the Abstract Expressionist movement, and I love expressive painting. Also, and highly importantly, personal experience counts for a lot - by working in an unguarded expressive way I find that the unexpected can emerge.
The Studio
THE STUDIO
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Colour and composition are actually rarely specifically deliberate choices. They evolve with the painting. I often work rapidly. Pausing to think for too long is often counter-productive, but I always need to walk away from a painting in order to let the idea gestate, and I then come back to it when it is (or I am) ready to reappraise, and if necessary leave it as it is or continue with it. I always say that a painting is never truly, safely finished until the point when it leaves my studio!
'If there's no unity in your work, then you've deliberately made yourself into that kind of person. You don't want that unity in your work. You've made some kind of satisfactory arrangement with your culture'.

Milton Resnick