I am very lucky to have found my calling early in life. My father, Anthony, was an artist from a family that hailed from Normandy. He was my art teacher at my school and my earliest source of inspiration. I was always in the art room during the holidays, and I sold my first painting to a parent. After travelling around North America, for a couple of years I worked in advertising, on superyachts and as Lord Bath’s painting assistant at Longleat.

I joined Chelsea School of Art in 1981 for a Foundation course where I was introduced to the burnt paper technique by Una Woodruff. I went to Winchester School of Art where Clyde Hopkins, Vanessa Jackson and Stephen Cooper encouraged me to loosen my brushstrokes inspired by the work of Phillip Guston. However, I preferred to paint still lifes in the style of Zurbarán so I left after the first year thinking that I could be an artist without having to attend art school. I moved to London where I continued painting, burning paper, painting murals and marbleizing with Jocasta Innes.

From 1985 to 1990, I had several sell-out exhibitions in London. I undertook commissions to decorate houses in London. In 1991, I married and moved to the Touraine in France for the next 10 years. I restored our house to its former glory and rediscovered my love of painting inspired by the French countryside. I enjoyed teaching art to adults and children of our village, improving my French and creating sets for school plays. I provided voice overs of English Kings for sound and light performances for the chateaux on the Loire. In 1997 I ran a chateau in Normandy for a prep school where I taught art and other subjects. I had a very successful exhibition in 1999 where I sold my paintings to the parents of the pupils.

In 2000, I returned to England and resumed my degree at Winchester School of Art working with video whilst teaching full-time. Since then I have been teaching Art at Lambrook, Dolphin, Redroofs and Stonydean schools and selling my art work on-line. During the holidays, I would visit my father in France and paint with him the reflections of poplars on the L’Indre.

I want to share my passion for burning newspaper to create collages and working with paint. My collages are inspired by OP and POP Art, Surrealism, Dadaism, whilst my paintings are inspired by Sisley and Monet. Although my collage and painting might seem different, they are united by my love of trees and reflections in the water, and on the world as I see it.