Born 1966 in Bushey, Hertfordshire, I began drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil, spending my early years drawing the things that made me really anxious in life: hoovers, escalators and ladies under hairdryers.  Luckily, by the time I was 18 my repertoire had expanded enough to get me into Harrow College of Art.

I hated art school and by the end of the foundation year had decided to study an academic degree.  After I graduated in English at University College, I went straight to drama school, whch was promptly followed by many dodgy fringe shows over pubs.  Eventually I got a bad agent, then my equity card, then a better agent.  Career highlights included playing ratty in a musical version of Wind in the Willows in Milford Haven and a European tour playing Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest to a succession of bewildered audiences across the continent.

Throughout my acting career I continued to paint.  However, it was during a protracted period of understudying on Stephen Daldry’s production of An Inspector Calls that I began to realise that for me, painting had become my favoured means of artistic expression and that I could quite happily live without acting!  I began showing  my pictures to friends and colleagues, and to my surprise, some of them actually expressed an interest in buying them – for real money! 

I am now, effectively, painting and illustrating full-time – though I still enjoy the occasional voice over!  It’s hardly a more secure profession than acting, but it’s considerably more rewarding and I feel I have an element of creative control and freedom that I certainly didn’t have before.