Over the last decade I have become drawn to, and fascinated by, the ‘still lifes’ that the sea creates as it leaves its flotsam on the shoreline. I have gathered hundreds of photographs, never rearranging the treasures that had caught my eye.

Four months spent in Ullapool, Scotland began to focus my attention on seaweeds – the beautiful forms and colours, the light and shadow on the beach which gave them a fascinating jewel-like quality.

I began to paint from my photographs, realising what drew me was the tension between the figurative and the abstract. Although my use of colour and mark making can quite closely represent the reality of my photographs, abstraction comes from the subject matter and zooming in: I want the viewer to be curious about, perhaps even mystified by, what they’re looking at, but to feel the sensuousness of the curves and twists of form and enjoy them for their own sake.

More recently, I have begun to explore texture as a background for seaweed images in a simple palette, whilst still having a fascination for form.