During the Christmas housekeeping, I’ve stumbled across some screenshots of an interactive art game that I developed during my Postgraduate degree in Interactive Multimedia at Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University in 2002/3.

Days in the Trees was inspired by Anthony Gormley’s sculpture, and placed his sculptures in an invented underground environment, derived from the Georgian architecture of Bath.

The participant’s task was to guide themselves through this environment, solving conceptual puzzles along the way. Unfortunately, due to technological obsolescence, it can no longer be played, but some stills from it still remain.

Two portraits of Lorraine, both from Agde, Southern France. The frames are both oil gilded, with applied decoration. They are interpretations of classical motifs, rather than strict reproductions. The paint effect was inspired by Impressionist decape frames, where the original gilding is mainly obscured either by removal, or in this case, by a distressed paint glaze. The paintings also feature extensive glazing to try to capture the translucency of the spring sunlight in France.

Picture frames have not historically been given the attention they deserve. As an artist-maker, I try to integrate the two together, developing a vocabulary of traditional techniques such as water gilding, carving and modelling, sympathetic to the subjects I paint.

Welcome to pleasure and imagination.

I’m an academic, painter, frame-maker and dancer based in Aberdeen, Scotland.

This blog will publish works in progress, writing and images, tying together my professional research and my personal creative work.

It will celebrate my love of Classicism, modernism, the Eighteenth century and other more personal pleasures. Enjoy.