Dave and I share a passion for drawing and painting, and creativity in general. Together, over the years, we have steadily been nurturing and growing Dave’s practice; exploring mediums such as Printmaking & Ceramics, and sharing his work with the public, including his solo show ‘Rhythm’ held at the Portland Arts Centre.

My own art practice forms a resource/platform to push and expand Dave’s artistic repertoire. This is evident in the production of Dave’s canvas paintings, whereby Dave was encouraged to make the leap into large-scale works. Dave’s willingness and ability to step into new artistic experiments, is inspiring and joyous to watch. Although, I don’t interfere with Dave’s image making, I feel it’s somewhat a collaborative process.

The ‘Ocean Dance’ exhibition features a new body of work, where I cross the threshold from observing to actively drawing and painting on the same works with Dave. Throughout the development of these works, I have learnt a lot from Dave. Particularly with the series of large-scale paintings. Dave has such a calm approach to his art making, quite often he would re-assure me during a painting session, ‘relax Rory…’ he would say. Dave took, the un-needed seriousness out of these works, and helped me ‘let go’ in some way. The last couple of artworks for me felt so nice to paint with Dave, just jamming on the canvas, watching these joyous, quirky narratives appear.