Born in Dublin, my family later moved to Brighton on England’s South Coast before I emigrated to Canada. I lived and worked in Vancouver for many years and eventually retired to Powell River. Looking back, it feels no accident that each of these places is defined by the sea.

At seventeen I joined the UK Merchant Navy as a deck cadet and left ten years later as a Class 1 Master Mariner. I then spent more than thirty years as a port captain based in Vancouver. The ocean has been a constant presence throughout my life and my paintings grow from that connection. It’s a fascination with the sea, the sky, the shifting light and cloudscapes that coastal life offers and not least, the humpbacks, orcas, sea lions, seals, otters, eagles, ospreys, geese, ducks, salmon, bears, cougars, coyotes, and so many more.

Possibly people who live on the coast do not choose it at all, perhaps we are simply, as Powell River says, “Coastal By Nature.”

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