Artist’s Statement

I’ve always been an observer – probably as a result of both circumstance and inclination. Just into my teens, back in the early seventies, I identified myself as being transgendered and, at that time, this placed me way outside mainstream norms and so I became, by necessity, an observer of the society to which only part of me belonged and that barely acknowledged the very small segment of the world that I occupied. I became a fascinated watcher, hungry for knowledge and experience.

As part of a large mixed race family in the urban sprawl of working class Birmingham, I grew up in a veritable melting pot of cultures and attitudes; this is what inspired my early work and pallet.

After the first 5 years of my education in the arts were completed in London I was immensely fortunate, due to the generosity of Tony Polledri, the owner of Bar Italia, to be offered studio space on Frith Street in the heart of Soho right across the road from the legendry Ronnie Scotts Club. The hustle, bustle, music, noise and a 24 hours a day frenetic energy kaleidoscope – what ambitious young artist could fail to respond?

The village of Rajbari in Southern Bangladesh offered an extreme contrast to Soho, wild colours amid a scene of barely supressed chaos. Every day life teemed around my studio offering an irresistible opportunity to sketch, draw and paint in a society that never truly knew what the next day might bring; the sense of impermanence was intoxicating. The gender dynamic was very different and I felt encouraged to take a much more adventurous approach to my work.

My next step – to early post apartheid in Cape Town was like a homecoming. The sense of release, freedom and tolerance that enveloped all that lived there was a wonderful wakening. To this was added a powerful background music, divers cultures and more and more opportunity to explore my own sense of personal liberty. It gave me the confidence to experiment with paint in a more expressive form. I learned to look more and I learned to see more and I responded by expressing myself with a greater sense of freedom.

How I enjoyed my journey and studios through these utterly divers parts of the world as well as the diversions to the Indian sub-continent and the Americas, not as a tourist but as a working and developing painter. In many ways it has been a mirror of my own journey that has confirmed my transgender identity.

I now live in a very different and in some ways markedly less tolerant Britain but I am still an observer, still a watcher but what I see now is evidence that the state of transition that always exists within society has gained considerable and, it seems, ever increasing, momentum – that is what I strive to capture in my work. My main focus is on society’s attitude to the individual’s identity which I try to capture mainly via multi media drawing.