Life
and Influences

My artistic life serves as a love letter to the artist Caravaggio!
My work explores the relationship between light and dark. I am attracted to strong chiaroscuro lighting. Over time I have come to realise that the most beautiful part of a painting, a photograph and indeed life; is not found at either end of the  good/bad, light/dark scale, but rather a beauty that occurs at the very point where light and dark meet and interact.

A summer course at the Angel Art Academy in Florence, Italy in 2012 ignited a passion in me. I studied the painting techniques of Caravaggio by copying the painting Bacchus. After the painting course I set about copying every work he ever painted. I wanted to hone the techniques I had learned. To date I have copied over 20 of Caravaggio’s works. My living room in Perugia, Italy, is filled with Caravaggio copies; stacks of Caravaggio books line my bookshelves. This is no mere infatuation, it is a grand love affair.

My holidays are guided, in part, by the mission to see all Caravaggio paintings in the flesh. I have set eyes on the rare ceiling fresco in Villa Aurora in Rome, Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Malta, and most of the Caravaggio paintings in galleries and churches throughout Europe. My grand, self imposed apprenticeship was to better understand the drama of Caravaggio’s work: his lighting, colour, detail, and composition.

To hear more about my art practice, my life, and influences go to my interview with Claudia de Llano @
Transformation Through Trust
The podcast is called ‘Transformation Through Trust’.