Biographic Sketch
I make art like a walking meditation, in the midst of other tasks. My creativity gets in my way and interrupts every perfectly good day; so I often stop to create for just a moment, and I am often caught up in that moment. Since childhood growing up in Britain creative projects have been integral to and distraction from day-to-day distractions.
I grew up in Sussex, England with my mother, older brother and younger sister. I come from a family of educators and artists. Both my artistic parents are teachers: my mother trained as a painter and later taught children with disabilities; my father started in advertising, then drifted on to the island of Ibiza then meandered to Morocco as a wandering poet; later he became a Waldorf school teacher, a wandering father, and like my grandfather Adam Bittleston, a proponent of Anthroposophy; he publishes a quarterly on imagination.
I left home when I was fifteen and traveled. I settled first in Greece, on the island of Alonissos (where I had been with my mother, brother and baby sister when I was nine), then in Italy where I lived on the island of Ischia until I was seventeen. The cafe where I worked had been a meeting place for painters such as Denis, Picasso, Miró and Dali, as well as poets and actors, since the early part of the century. It had paintings and autographed photos from floor to ceiling, which I was told had been bartered to guarantee debts which were never paid. After almost drowning in the sea during a storm, I returned to England. This near-death experience was a wakeup-call that marked my birth as an artist. From then on I painted and thought seriously. I joined my now Architect brother, father and sisters in California.
Since then, I have had over forty exhibitions nationally and abroad. My work is held in dozens of collections worldwide. I have made thousands of paintings, photographs, conceptual works, installations, and filled countless sketch books with drawings and ideas. I apprenticed as studio assistant for five years with a prominent abstract expressionist painter. I appeared in the top five of Artnet's most popular artists. During the day, I lead an innovative and award winning web development team at Cisco Systems. Recently one of my paintings was selected for 2006 line of Art Bars.
Ink Painting Process
My paintings are made with a process that starts by me randomly pouring and flicking ink across paper, then letting it dry. Later I submerge each paper separately in a basin of water, staring into the ink and water; I work on the painting with a stiff bush subtracting the ink to simplify form out of the apparent chaos trying to excavate images that are hidden in the randomness. I work this way until the painting becomes recognizable, in a nuanced way, like a dream, not necessarily representing something specific but communicating clearly in its own terms and having its own form, light and space.
See more about the ink paintings and read about my New Years Eve ritual and how I started ink painting.
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