portfolio
beyond salvation
Death comes early on the shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh.
Giant ships, workhorses of the rapacious consumer economy have come to the beach at Chittagong to die. But even useless and leaching toxins, oil and chemicals they are still worth more than the lives of the humans breaking them. With little to no safety equipment scores of men, often beginning work before they are 13 years old are killed and maimed each year. Their life expectancy remains a full 20 years lower than the national average.
Is an industry that profits from salvaging the carcasses of its ships at the expense of the poorest people on the planet and its ecosystems itself beyond salvation?
On the Brink
“A tavern of dropsical appearance… long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. It had outlasted many a sprucer public house, indeed the whole house impended over the water but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver, who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all.” Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
The inspiration for Dickens’ tavern in ‘Our Mutual Friend’ The Grapes at Limehouse stands at the threshold of the land and the sea. A gateway to global trade and new lands, it offered seafarers warmth, fellowship, farewell and their last drink in England for more than 400 years.
Dropping The Dog Shore
Having just dropped the ‘dog shore’ workers on the Strand Slipway at the John Crown & Sons Sunderland shipyard on 29th May 1930 anxiously watch the coaler Bovey Tracey begin to move down the ways.
For generations shipwrights had relied on the heavy dog shore to hold the ship, preventing her running away once the other shores, stays, bilge and keel blocks were removed in preparation for launch. For the shipwright every second between the dog shore being dropped and the ship entering the water safely was said to feel like an hour.
Transformation
A seaman watches the patrol forming up in the Dover Strait during World War II. Following in the proud tradition of the illustrious WWI Dover Patrol, individual warships converge in common purpose for mutual protection and defence and are transformed into something greater than the sum of their parts.
Limbo
Built in greater numbers than any other class of post-war Royal Navy surface ship, the Leander class frigate’s outstanding design offered significant scope for useful modernisation, including the addition of the LIMBO anti-submarine weapons system.
Out of the water undergoing refit at Devonport Dockyard in the mid-1980’s F39 HMS Naiad is herself in limbo, mid-transformation, her LIMBO system now fitted forward of the bridge. She was sunk during a weapons testing trial on 28th September 1990 off Portsmouth having steamed 337,407 miles.
RMS Titanic – Sea Trials
Commission Sketch
The legendary RMS Titanic of the White Star Line, sunk during her maiden voyage in 1912 is captured undergoing her sea trials on Belfast Lough in the morning light of 7th April 1911. Standing sentinel are the tugs Herculanean, Huskisson and Hornby, with Carrickfergus background.
Sketch for part of a series of four original pen and ink drawings detailing Titanic’s build, launch, sea trials and maiden voyage commissioned by a private collector in the United States of America.
Twilight
A general cargo ship captured at the Pool of London. The twilight is liminal: it could be a misty dawn or smoggy dusk; she may be discharging or loading ready to depart. It may be the heyday of the Pool of London at the turn of the 20th century, or equally one of the last ships to anchor so far up the river Thames.
exhibitions
Previous and upcoming exhibitions.
commissions
Commission private & public works.
sales
Original & limited edition works.