College for me was Cambridge Art School where the photography bug got me.

It stayed with me through my time as an art director and illustrator but I never made a career out of it. I sold all my equipment to buy my first house and so began a slow recovery of my drawing skills.

In 1984 I was taken on by Beint and Beint illustrators agents, later known as Illustrators.co.. I had my first one-man show at their gallery in Bloomsbury in 1984. The year before I'd been invited to exhibit in the Oxford Art Week at Kelmscote House.

Encouraged by these small successes at exhibiting and the flow of illustration commissions, I kept my hand in drawing whenever I had the time.

It my be hard to see but figure drawing is at the heart of everything I do. It's hidden well now but study hard and you'll find it lurking somewhere.

Moving into abstraction has taken four years of disposing of one language and learning or defining a new, more vibrant one. The key for me is to keep the viewer guessing about the narrative so they apply their own. This enables them to take possession of the painting with their own thoughts and experience.