I have been making large sized ink drawings over the past few months. Although I have several on smaller sizes, it is when I am working on 8ft x5ft that I feel I am getting the maximum out of the physicality of the drawing. The drawings rely on gesture in as much as they're directly painted with Chinese ink brushes, however I do not consider them as gestural drawings per se. I see them as functional works that allow me to look at: weighting, contrast and spatial dynamics as fully intentional characteristics, and invention, rhythm, complexity and surprise as rewarding consequences of this intent.

These works have evolved out of the preoccupations of last year's paintings coupled with a period of print-making that dealt almost exclusively with black and white. Ink is unforgiving as a medium and I am excited by specificity that an 'on-off' approach such as the one I have employed affords me. I deliberately avoided using washes which produce tonally recessive spaces as I didn't want to create works which rely on depth made in a predictable way. These works generate unexpected qualities and spaces and that is something I find ever more encouraging and a signifier of the right direction to develop abstract work.