I was born in Bolton in the North of England, but Sweden has been home for many years. I am a dual national, very much at home here, but still fiercely proud of where I come from and of my northern roots.

Drawing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a very young child, I drew maps almost religiously, and not imagined maps either, but careful, accurate ones. Looking back, there was already something there about observation, structure and the satisfaction of translating the world onto paper. I studied art at school and college, although I did not continue with it at university. Art never entirely disappeared from my education, however, and when I later completed my MA, visual culture and art history formed a significant part of the work.

For many years, most of what I made was rooted in realism, and much of it was not painting at all. I was comfortable with drawing, accuracy and representation, but much less comfortable moving away from them. That ability to reproduce what I could see became both a skill and a restriction. I knew how to make recognisable work, but I did not yet know how to let go of it.

Art disappeared from my life for a long time. I dabbled now and again, tried different things, but I never really settled on anything and never stuck with it for very long. When I eventually came back to painting, it was partly through the colours I was seeing in nature and the environment around me, but also through a growing desire to do something completely different from the work I had made before. I still remember having to pluck up the courage to simply throw some paint around on a canvas. It sounds like a small thing, but for someone who had spent years working carefully and realistically, it felt like a genuine break with everything I thought I knew about making art.

Something shifted after that. I stopped worrying so much about whether I could reproduce what I saw and became much more interested in what paint itself could do. Colour, texture, movement and instinct gradually replaced accuracy and representation. There was no dramatic decision to become an abstract painter; it simply began to feel right, and now abstraction is almost all I do.

I love colour. I love texture. I love the freedom of making work that does not need to explain itself through a recognisable image. The paintings are built through instinct, speed, layering and response. One mark leads to another, colours push against each other, and the work develops through the process rather than from a fixed plan.

I now work mainly with paint, usually on canvas, but also on other surfaces that I think will take it. I am drawn to larger work and the physical freedom that comes with it, but I also enjoy the limitations of a smaller piece, where every mark has to carry more weight. I used to look at paintings and judge them mainly by what I could see. Now I tend to feel them more, and I have learned to trust that response in my own work.

I want people to enjoy the colour, the movement, the randomness and the abstraction. I do not want to tell anyone exactly what they should see, because part of the point is that the work can remain open and become something different to each person. At the same time, I want original art to feel accessible. I would much rather someone bought a real painting, made by a real person, than another reproduction from a furniture store.

I live and work just outside Stockholm and sell my work directly through this site.