Why Colour? What I’m Trying to Do With My Paintings
Colour is the first thing people notice in my work. It’s also the last thing I’m willing to compromise on.
I paint with acrylics because I love their immediacy — the way they let me respond quickly to feeling. But it’s colour that carries the emotional truth. Colour is the language I trust when words get clumsy.
This is a blog about why I choose it so boldly, what I’m trying to achieve with it, and what I hope you feel when you live with one of my paintings.
Colour is how I translate emotion
I don’t paint to decorate a wall. I paint to translate something that’s real — love, joy, hurt, tenderness, overwhelm, relief. The human condition, in all its messy beauty.
Sometimes those emotions arrive as a clear story. Sometimes they arrive as pure sensation: pressure in the chest, a rush of energy, a heaviness, a spark. In those moments, colour becomes my shorthand.
A hot pink can be defiance, celebration, survival.
A sharp yellow can be laughter, light, a sudden opening.
A turquoise can be breath, space, clarity.
I’m not saying colour has one fixed meaning — it doesn’t. But I am saying it has a truthfulness that I can build on. When I’m painting, I’m listening for the colour that matches the feeling.
I want the painting to change the atmosphere of a room
Collectors often tell me they’re drawn to the energy and texture of the work — that it feels alive.
That’s intentional.
I want a painting to do more than “look good.” I want it to shift the atmosphere of a space. To bring movement into stillness. To bring warmth into a quiet room. To bring courage into a corner that’s been ignored.
Colour is the quickest way to change a room’s emotional temperature.
When you live with a piece of art, it becomes part of your daily nervous system. You see it in the morning. You pass it on the way to make tea. You catch it in your peripheral vision when you’re tired.
So I paint with the belief that colour can be a kind of companion.
My aim is healing — not in a perfect way, but in a human way
I’m open about the fact that mental health matters deeply to me. I’ve lived enough to know that suffering can be quiet and private, even when life looks fine from the outside.
I don’t claim that a painting can “fix” anything.
But I do believe colour can help.
It can remind you that intensity doesn’t have to be dangerous.
It can offer joy without asking you to earn it.
It can hold both vulnerability and strength in the same frame.
When I say I want my work to alleviate suffering and spread joy, I mean it in the simplest possible way: I want you to feel something good in your body when you look at it. Even if it’s just a small lift. Even if it’s just a moment of relief.
Colour is where my personal narrative lives
My paintings are rooted in lived experience — places I’ve been, chapters I’ve survived, the inner weather of being human.
I’m inspired by the grounding of Bolton, the electricity of New York, and the warmth of Granada. Those places don’t always show up as literal scenes, but they live in the palette, the pace, the contrast.
Sometimes the colour is bold because life has been bold.
Sometimes it’s layered because feeling is layered.
Sometimes it’s bright because brightness is an act of refusal.
Collectors often sense this even if they don’t know the details. They feel the honesty. That’s what I want: not a perfect story, but a real one.
I use colour to create movement — and texture to make it physical
Colour in my work isn’t flat. It’s built.
I use acrylics with texture paste, tissue paper, and unexpected materials because I want the surface to hold evidence of the process. I want you to be able to stand close and see the decisions, the revisions, the moments where I pushed through.
Sometimes I apply paint with a bottle, letting it run or land in a way that feels like energy rather than control.
That physicality matters.
Because what I’m really trying to paint is movement: emotional movement, psychological movement, the way we shift and change and survive.
What I hope you feel when you collect one
If you’re considering buying an original, I want you to know what you’re really taking home.
You’re not just buying colour.
You’re buying a piece of lived experience, translated into paint.
You’re buying a work that was made with intention — to bring something into your life: energy, joy, courage, tenderness, light.
And I hope, over time, it becomes part of your own story.
If you’re drawn to colour, trust that
People sometimes apologise for loving bold colour — as if it’s too much, too loud, too playful, too intense.
But “too much” is often where the truth is.
If a painting pulls you in, if it makes you feel more alive, if it gives you a sense of possibility — that’s not a shallow reaction. That’s your intuition recognising something.
And that’s exactly why I paint.
If you’d like to enquire about an original painting (or discuss a commission), you can contact me through my website. I’m always happy to talk through what you’re drawn to, what space it’s for, and what you want the work to hold for you.