Portfolio

This curated galley of my artwork is a way of sharing this part of who I am, alongside the legacy of my academic activism and its conventional outputs.

Like many university liberal arts students, I took a few fine arts courses, drawing, painting, set and costume design. I enjoyed the courses and kept drawing upon graduation but soon after the fine arts were eclipsed by other routines. As I aged closer to retirement I decided to devote time to the fine arts of my youth.

I began cautiously with pencil sketches, some of which are from my travel sketchbook. Many are portraits, including an older series honouring those whose jobs had disappeared or, in the case of the UK coal miner, should.

I began to play a little with abstraction in some of my charcoal drawings. The merging of abstract and figurative art is an aesthetic I found even more appealing after I ventured into acrylic painting. I like to start with a figurative form and then mess it up a bit, exaggerating here or there with colour or shape. It is a style I am keen to continue developing.

Drawing or painting gives me meditative pleasure and soulful energy to continue with the health activist and social justice work that has defined my entire life.