"Painting is like slowly taking bits of myself out of a box and beginning to examine them. I explore this in strong colour and very directly in paint, and look at views of the outside world.

I use myself to find out about the funny and surprising, the awkwardness and ambivalence of looking and moving differently. I look at the hidden parts, which cannot be seen by the outside gaze. I work in the 'space' of a canvas with its defined boundaries where marks and colour can carry my expression. I now sometimes add in objects to the painting, props and metaphors of life.

The other side of my work looks outwards to a world of landscapes and townscapes, depicting the surface memories of life, as if we see the world not as it is but through our projections and hopes. The colour beguiles the viewer, maybe offering escape or the huge romance with life as in 'Flying Clouds'.

My work has an immediacy of response that may touch and use everyday awkwardness, seen and unseen, happy or sad, how the world's gaxe perceives us and how our gaze can look outwards.

I identify with artists like Matisse, Derain and Charmy but also have a passion for Rothko and Pollock. These artists could be said to be concerned with the purity of the aesthetic language, an autonomous art. But I would extend my list to artists like Boltanski, Baselitz, Warhol, Hatoum and Ayres to name but a few.

Lucy Jones