"My first memory is the foghorns on the Mersey. As a kid, my soletalent was for art, my favourite place, Liverpool's derelict Albert Dock.After school, I would go sit beneath the vaulted colonnade looking out on to the rain-plucked basin, drawing altenately on my Daler pad and an Embassy Filter. The deserted building was a lesson in proportion, the rusting boats sinkiing in the basin held up by hawsers stretched out form the iron bollards. The strength of that steel rope, enough it seemed to hold the weight of the whole sinking city, appeared miraculous.
Duing lockdown, I took to walking along the Lea River Navigation where I again noticed steel rope coiled on the decks of Dutch barges and, still the kid who can't sleep for stupid ideas running around in the dark, I played with ways of 'freezing' those shapes.
I chose to capture a form I found beautiful. And I've been doing that since I first wandered in the Albert dock ."
N.B extract from a statement by the artist - complete version available on request.