Why I Paint the Places That Become Part of Our Lives

There are countless beautiful places in the world.

Some are famous, some are hidden away, and many are somewhere in between. Yet I've often found that the places which stay with us are rarely the ones featured in guidebooks. They're the places that become part of our own story.

That's what I try to paint.

Over the years I've been fortunate enough to travel widely. Every destination has left its mark in a different way. Sometimes it's the remarkable architecture of a city, sometimes it's the atmosphere of a quiet harbour, and sometimes it's simply the way the light fell across a street at a particular moment.

Those memories stay with me long after I've returned home. York is one of those places. It will always be special because it's where my wife and I were married, and where so much of our family life continues today. Every visit reveals something new, whether it's the changing light along Stonegate or the quiet corners that many people simply walk past.

New York has become another place that continues to inspire me. Like many visitors, I was captivated by its skyline and energy the first time I arrived. Yet what brings me back isn't simply the architecture. It's the atmosphere, the traditions we've created there, and the memories built over many visits. One of those traditions is always stopping at the Oyster Bar beneath Grand Central before setting off to explore the city once again.

Those personal moments are often far more important than the famous landmarks.

People sometimes ask whether I paint from photographs. Photographs are useful reference points, but they are never the destination. A photograph records what was there. A painting allows me to explore what it felt like to be there.

That's why I work in mixed media.

Layer by layer, the painting develops much like a memory. Texture builds upon texture, colours shift, details appear and disappear, and gradually the atmosphere begins to emerge. I'm not trying to recreate a perfect representation of a place. I'm trying to recreate the experience of standing there.

Whether the subject is a bustling city, a quiet woodland, colourful sails on open water or an iconic figure, every painting begins in exactly the same way.

Something stays with me. It catches my attention, lingers in my thoughts and eventually finds its way onto the canvas. I've realised over the years that I'm not really painting places.

I'm painting the memories they leave behind.

Perhaps that's why people often tell me one of my paintings reminds them of somewhere they've lived, somewhere they've travelled or somewhere they dream of visiting. If that's true, then I feel I've succeeded.

Because the places we remember are rarely the most famous.

They're the ones that became part of our story.