“I paint with a digital tablet and pen.
The images are then printed in editions of 10 using archival papers and inks.”
“When I was young I loved fire, I loved nature and had this fantasy that I was some kind of ‘nature boy’, supernaturaly connected with the trees and grasses and all the wild animals that lived there. I built shelters, hacking and weaving broom and green branches into cosy hides where I could sit and eat jam sandwiches until it got dark.
One day, walking back from school, down the dirt road to Dryleys Farm, I came across this bird sort of shuffling its self across the dirt, i picked it up and gently unfolding its wings carefully looked for blood. There was none. It must have hit something, got itself tangled in the telegraph wires. It was a bird of prey, a small thing though with a longish tail. I took it home and put it into the empty rabbit hutch – the previous tenants had been done for months previously by something like a stoat or weasel – where it sat and looked at me with its very yellow eyes, not frightened at all. In my mind, or so my memories tell me, I fed it earthworms and pea size purls of raw mince I got from my mum, really, I don’t expect it ate a thing. It just sat, and I looked and loved every feather of the creature.
We were going to be friends forever. This sparrow hawk would, with what I imagined was a common sense shared by all creatures, feel gratitude. It would love me right back. We would grow up together, it would learn tricks, fly around me, landing among my hair and spread its wings like a broad hat.
The next morning, before I got going for school, I ran to the hutch. The yellow eyes were staring out, looking sad I thought. The thing had missed me. I reached gently tucking its wings beneath my fingers and I stood up. I looked right into its eyes, and opened my hands. There was a moment of still air… and then it was gone. In a crackle of feathers it disappeared into the sky forever.”