Originally more of a photographer, painting has become the focus of my practise, largely inspired by a two-year MA at Central Saint Martins. Most of my work takes the form of large abstract canvases.

I’m inspired by the power of colour, how colours create relationships and emotional responses in ways that can be unexpected. I think colours are more than a visual language, more than a way of defining objects in time and space. They are active beings, individuals with distinct characters and personalities. And yet they also depend on each other for their power. They work together in seemingly limitless ways. I often think they pay no attention to whatever rules we might like to impose on them.

I usually begin with the colours I want to work with, but the form they take can be unplanned and is often accidental. Recently, I’ve also been inspired by the landscape around me – not so much to represent it but more to capture the sensations it provokes.

I’m especially drawn to blue. It’s not a colour you often see in nature, except in the sea and the sky, and as we know they aren’t really blue. I feel blue is abstract by nature. It’s also the colour of jazz – abstract music which loves improvisation and dissonance. I think it’s the most philosophical of colours.

Derek Jarman once said “Blue an open door to soul, an infinite possibility”, I like that.

paddy@theabstractblue.com