Though not a plein air artist, I admire Impressionists like Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Singer Sargent, Sisley and others who enjoyed painting outside because of the way they use delicate lines and muted colours, lucidly portraying the transience of the natural world. Like them, I paint simply what I see, think and feel though in my own style. I don’t seek perfection in the visual appearance; I create an 'impression' of how a landscape, object, or person appears to me at a certain moment in time.  

I am fascinated by Turner's use of contrasting mediums of watercolour and oils in the same painting to create dramatic skies and seascapes. I’m drawn to surrealists like Carrington and Kahlo because their art is developed from the pains and passions they experienced in life and incorporates flora and fauna alongside aspects of humanity, something I'd like to explore in my own work. 

However, I am more closely aligned to the figurative, representational style of Modernist and Expressionist artists. My style has been likened to Rousseau and Spencer in the way I also use bold colours, evoke dark moods and create figurative, stylised human forms. Rousseau's so-called naïve art belies the beauty of his paintings which are evidently created from imagination. Layers of plants and animals are superimposed like a story or dream and using real objects to create a different reality in a painting is a prominent feature in some of my work. The symmetrical, decorative, baroque style of Morris and Klimt are a favourite influence. Morris, an exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement, showed how art can be present in everyday objects and Klimt's decorative, baroque style emerges effortlessly from his work.  Like the American Expressionist, Alice Neel, I like to focus on single objects, still life or imagined scenes consisting of real-life items. 

My philosophy and techniques are akin to those of Post-Impressionists such as Cezanne, Gauguin, and Picasso who preferred to work in the studio and experiment with different styles. The father of Post Impressionism, Van Gogh especially fascinates me because of the way he guides the viewer around the shapes and silhouettes of his flowers and objects, whilst simultaneously holding attention with his use of bold, vibrant colours and expressive brushstrokes.