These paintings don't begin at the water's edge. They begin in the water: from a kayak riding ocean waves, from underwater looking up through the  surf, from the bank of a winter stream feeling the cold air on your face.

Thirty years of physical encounter with water, kayaking, diving, caving, exploring wild places, have given me a way of knowing water, in a way that observation alone never could. I have felt the power of a river in spate, the weightless quiet of diving at depth, the integration of body and wave that happens while kayaking, as you start understanding the sea and learn to move with it. That knowledge now informs every mark I make.

These works translate embodied experience into abstract colour, texture and gesture, using the physical materials of the water's edge, sand, gravel, leaves, built up in layers alongside paint, gold leaf and texture paste. They are not paintings of water. They are paintings of what it is to be inside it.

Deep Knowing is a growing body of work. New paintings will be added as the collection develops.