Art should evolve as we do; have we yet gone beyond the conservatism of the representational image? We can describe the figure, landscape, still-life and so forth quite adequately, but this mere repetition only serves to reinforce the stereotypical and does not engender the search for a more relevant means of communicating a wider range of ideas rather than the prescribed and archaic images of yesterday.

The reason I paint is to search beyond the mundane for the reality of the spirit, a precise consciousness, to separate this existence from its origins, creating an image that defines its experience in a continuous and separate existence.

The art of the past, from the earliest cave paintings to that of the great civisations, was created to serve specific functions, to reinforce the standing of the church, monarchy and state, not to be merely decorative. From the pictures the gods to the pyramids; to the Mayan; from Babylon to Kush and Mexico, these artworks embodied the spirit, the information of the spirit as then understood. With the advent of science, mans perceptions have changed - even so, most individuals still believe in the continuity of the self after death - yet the individual has never been so isolated as he is now.

The tribe is the cultural pivot of and for the interpretation not only of sensory information but also spiritual. We interpret and understand in the way we were taught as infants.

The perception of reality and its interpretation through the individual embraces the images and mythology of the culture through which it is prescribed. We see and interpret, and it is the interaction of perception, consciousness and experience which shapes the conclusions we draw.

We create our own universes, hiding within ourselves, relating to that around us through the mask that is our ego. Each truth is subjective and each image wrought with the experience that creates us.

Time nourishes us, for with time comesexperience and understanding; but there is a poison within, for with time comesage - and with age comes death. Butexperience is vital for without it we cannot evolve to learn that the constantis repetitious. With the slow death ofthe body comes the expansion of the self and with it the awareness of the restrictionsof static existence.