the joy of Living a creative life

My path to becoming an artist

I understand first-hand the pain of not living a creative life 

I wasn’t always an artist. I began my career in the City of London before moving to Silicon Valley to work in technology companies. It was in California that I began a journey of self-discovery, dismantling the discomfort I was feeling in a corporate environment was in fact my creative spirit clamouring to be seen and acknowledged. 

For many years I denied, ignored and repressed my soul’s urge to create.

It’s a feeling that begins as a dull ache and can reach an intolerable level of discomfort, even to the point of breakdown. 

As I tended to the whisperings of my soul, reconnecting with my love of art, I took art history classes and painting lessons with some of the best teachers I could find it at UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute and later in Los Angeles.

I began to host and produce art exhibitions, forming a legal entity called Blue Tangerine Art which became an art consultancy firm helping collectors and designers and architects to source contemporary painting, sculpture and photography from around the world.

It was my dream job interacting with artists, galleries and dealers and I immersed myself in the world of how art is made and how art is sold. 

It was a surprise when, one year as I walked the halls of Art Basel Miami Beach art fair, I realised I was in fact looking for a painting that I would have to make —one that was joyous, colourful and filled with positive energy —to uplift and inspire my clients. The sort of painting I would like to hang in my home.

And so at this pivotal point, I changed directions.  I asked my mother, who is also an artist, to teach me how to paint.

Once I discovered art - something I’d loved all along but hadn’t given attention to - I found a deep sense of fulfilment for the first time in years

With great patience and kindness, she commented on the paintings I made in California from her home in England, and we began a dialogue of critiquing the paintings I was making. I am deeply grateful for her wisdom and for introducing me to her teacher Robin Child, whose own teacher was taught by the 20th Century painter Walter Sickert, who in turn was a pupil of Whistler and Degas.

At some point every artist must chart their own path and make their own art that is the true expression of their own essence.

I did this in California, where the light and space calls for a more vibrant palette with pure colour in more saturated tones. To this day I very rarely use black allowing the healing frequencies of pure colour to emanate from my canvas.