Most of Alan’s inspiration comes from the life that goes on around him on a daily basis. People, situations and places all feed into commissioned work as well as personal paintings. “I might see some kid getting a slap from his mum in the supermarket and this could start a whole series of paintings or provide an attitude, angle or reference point for a commissioned piece”. More often than not however, real life is turned on it’s head, so that the everyday life depicted in Alan’s paintings, demands a double-take. A Horse-Guard stands next to a figure with a horses head, a girl carrying sacks of rice on her head can be spotted in the shadow of supermarket shopping trolley. With a minimal efficiency in his mark making, suggestions of meaning are made but remain ambiguous inviting collaboration between Alan and his audience.

This intelligent and thought provoking approach to image making has easily lent itself to several commissions from leading corporate and financial institutions. These clients, tired of the clichéd handshake between two suits, have chosen to set themselves apart with the use of illustration that articulates a more unique service. With a combination of rigorous ideas and lightly referenced visual metaphors, Alan has created a library of artworks for these clients that visualise very specific corporate services and areas of key interest; emerging markets, responsible leadership, investment planning. The resulting images manage to bridge cultural differences for these global organisations.

In creating his artworks, Alan doesn’t rule out anything in his choice of materials. Wooden boards are probably his preferred surface but these are then worked into. Holes drilled, or background pattern provided by spray-painting through lace. Sometimes a chintzy fabric is glued to the surface of the board, only revealed where areas have been masked off to create silhouettes in the final painting.

Alan’s work is also peppered with some of his own obsessions, his library of personal symbols that recur in his work; flyovers, school children, warriors, Greek Myths re-enacted in the 21st century, Versaille, New York, vehicles, signage, planes, docks, the urban landscape, the rural landscape, horses and more.

Clients

Victoria & Albert Museum
Ernst and Young
The Fader
Penguin Books
Viant Investment
Los Angeles Times
Esquire
BBC Radio 4
Grant Thornton International
Harpers
New York Magazine
The Independent
Bloomsbury
Deliverance
Faber & Faber
Macquarie Bank Australia
Atlantic Records
The New York Times
The COI (Central Office of Information)

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