I grew up in a deprived Yorkshire mining town, drawing and painting from a young age. Art was never a luxury I could afford to pursue. I needed to earn, so entering the world of unskilled work was the only available path. But the need to paint never quite left me.

Over the years I dabbled, and gifted work to family and friends. The fact that most of it is still on their walls, I choose to take as a compliment.

So no art school. No formal training. No real grasp of the rules. Just a stubborn preference for doing things the only way I know how. These days I paint in the gaps between a career in digital marketing, which is exactly as riveting as it sounds.

Currently, I'm painting exclusively in red, yellow and blue, nothing else. No blending, no fussing, no artistic angst. The backgrounds are often a mud I mix from all three primary colours.

This palette challenges me, and it's deeply simplistic, raw or almost primal.
Forgive me for sounding like a wanker, but my work probably sits at the intersection of pop art and expressionism. I use a lot of bold, flat colour and iconic subject matter, combined with raw, emotional urgency.

I work fast, and I work confidently. My career, responsibilities and need to get outside in the beautiful Scottish countryside I now live in limits the amount of time I have to paint. I've come to think of this approach as an advantage. The marks made with less hesitation carry something laboured marks don't.

Painting for me is a counterweight, a part of my life that exists entirely on my own terms. I paint what I want to paint, how I like to, and when I want to. Frankly I enjoy the act more than anything else, it puts me into a flow state, and it's addictive.

I'm not trying to be the next big thing. I paint because it's the part of the week where I momentarily forget about life.

If you like my work, brilliant. If you want to buy a piece, even better. If not, I'll probably just give it to someone I know.