Biography

I lost my Sight in 1965 due to corticosteroid induced glaucoma whilst I was in Primary School grade 4, and was declared Legally Blind with 2% sight in peripheral vision in one eye.

In 2019 at the age of 63 I lost virtually all my sight to the point that today I only have light perception and am unable to identify colour. I am therefore defined as Totally Blind.

Education

In the years 1968 – 70 I completed years 7, 8 and 9 at Bairnsdale Secondary College. I then attended North Rocks School for the Blind in Sydney from 1971 – 73 to learn Braille and other skills. I returned to Victoria to complete years 11 and 12 at Gippsland Grammar School in Sale.

My Art Journey

As an 8yr old I entered and won three competitions for Drawing.

I took art as a subject in year 11 but felt I had little support to continue art in year 12. Looking back this was a missed opportunity.

My wife Kaye and I discovered we had a mutual interest in art which has inspired us to enjoy visits to various Art Galleries and museums at home and internationally.

As a result of a friend sending me an email with a link to the English Blind artist Sargy Mann’s website in Feb 2022, my passion for Art was reignited. Within a month I became inspired by his techniques addressing sight loss whilst painting. With excitement I dashed out and purchased a range of paints and canvas, and through using some of Sargy Mann’s methods, predominantly the use of blue tac acting as coordinates. I began to develop my own painting style and methods particularly the use of elastic bands stretched around the canvas to divide the horizontal and vertical areas. I trialled using my fingers in preference to brush and often found a more effective result for my style of painting.


Here is my first painting I produced in Feb 2022 before and after developing my skills using Oil pastels in conjunction with Acrylic Paint.

To quote Sargy Mann

“If your subject is your own experience, then as long as you are having an experience you have a subject.”“My desire is to make paintings or to make various metaphors for my experience of reality”.

I consider my paintings are formulated from collectively weaving my experiences, imagination and interpretations of my surroundings, and are a mirroring of my life experiences and interpretations set down on canvas. The process of creating the painting materialises my experiences of my subject in a physical way.

My Paintings are symbolic of my responses and interpretations of real life, not abstract, not photographic reality, nor fine art, but my own interpretations of my life on canvas.