After several years of working with oil and cold wax, I have come to understand the medium less as a set of techniques and more as a set of conditions. This post reflects on what those conditions are, and how they have shaped the way I think about painting.

Damien Hirst used formaldehyde; he would have been better served by an eco-friendly peat bog. 'Between Worlds' abstract Fenland painting..

Oil and Cold ax painting of a forest 100 x 150 cm on canvas

'After Glow' 80 x 80 cm Acrylic on Canvas 'Afterglow' — The Light Series This painting belongs to The Light Series, a group of works concerned with the landscape of the Cambridgeshire Fenlands. It is a personal reflection on the open fields and skies of East Anglia, though the work carries no topographical information to act as a compass or guide. There are no landmarks, no trees or hedgerows, no features that would anchor the image to a specific place. The viewer is left wit

Creating art is a fundamental part of my identity and a way for me to express my emotions and thoughts. When I make images, I feel like I’m connecting with something deeper. This process feels like a journey, where each brushstroke or pencil mark leads to new insights and understandings. Art helps me capture the complexities of life—its beauty, chaos, and mysteries. Each piece I create represents a specific moment, emotion, or idea that interests me. Making art isn't just abo

This painting, 'Archaeology of Thought', is made in oil and cold wax medium on a cradled wooden board. It belongs to a continuing body of work concerned with landscape, climate, and sensory experience translated into paint — work that asks what it means to record a place not through description but through accumulation. The title is deliberate. Archaeology implies excavation: the careful removal of material to reveal what lies beneath. But it also implies the reverse — the sl

'Shallow Lands' 100 x 100 cm Mixed Media on C Paint can be applied with almost anything that will hold it. I rarely use brushes in my current work — not from any aversion to them, but because working with brushes alone tends to return me to a familiar repertoire of marks and painterly qualities that become predictable over time. The introduction of unconventional materials and tools has been both liberating and demanding, opening up surface possibilities that a brush simply c

Creating a convincing sense of the third dimension in painting is one of the medium's enduring challenges. There are many ways to render depth and recession — through perspective, tonal gradation, atmospheric colour — but some painters have pursued a more direct solution: the physical projection of paint beyond the picture plane into actual space. Van Gogh, Willem de Kooning, Frank Auerbach, and Anselm Kiefer are all painters known for the palpable, tactile presence of their

A landscape painting of Thetford Forest in oil and cold wax medium

' The Archaeology of Thought' Oil and cold wax 60 x 60 cm

Borderlands. An abstract Landscape painting by Peter Corr. See his work at the Battersea Affordable Art Fair 21 - 24 October 21

‘High White Fen’ 80 x 40 on Cradled Board (Detail ‘High White Fen’) Detail ‘ High White Fen’ If someone told you that a painting of a...

‘Devil’s Dyke’ Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 130 x 4 cm Running along the top of Devil’s Dyke is a narrow causeway. At this time of year it is...

‘Westmoor’ 100 x 150 x 4cm ‘Westmoor’ (Detail) The Fens around Ely come to life with colour at this time of year. The intense yellow...

Cambridge Open Studios, July 2021 In July 2021 I participated in Cambridge Open Studios — an annual event that opens artists' studios to the public across the Cambridge area. Open Studios is one of the most direct forms of engagement between artists and their audience: visitors come to the studio, see the work in the context in which it was made, and have the opportunity to talk with the artist about the process and the ideas behind the paintings. The Studio The studio is the

Fields, Rivers and Dreams — The Fenland Landscape from Above Seen from above, the Cambridgeshire Fenlands reveal a geometry that is invisible at ground level. The dykes and drains run in straight lines across the flat terrain, dividing the land into rectangles and parallelograms of varying colour and texture. The rivers wind between them, their curves a counterpoint to the rigidity of the drainage system. From the air, the Fens look like a vast, abstract painting — a composit

In painting, unconventional materials generate unexpected effects and unpredictable outcomes. They interact in ways that are difficult to anticipate and impossible to fully control — and that is precisely their value. The reassurance offered by conventional artists' materials can also be a constraint: knowing in advance what you will get tends to produce work that confirms rather than discovers. Deploying unfamiliar materials is a high-risk strategy, but it opens up new possi

'Reflections in the New Forest' — Artist Residency Work 'Reflections in the New Forest' is one of a group of paintings made during my residency in the New Forest. The title refers both to the literal reflections of trees and sky in the forest pools and streams, and to the more general quality of reflection — of looking back, of seeing the landscape in relation to memory and experience — that the residency encouraged. The Residency The New Forest residency was a period of sust

Futurism, Movement and the Large-Scale Acrylic The Futurist painters of the early twentieth century were preoccupied with movement — with the representation of speed, energy, and the dynamism of modern life. Boccioni, Severini, and Balla developed a visual language for depicting objects in motion: the fragmentation of form, the multiplication of contours, the use of directional marks to suggest velocity. These ideas remain productive for painters working today, even in contex

Acrylic on Paper 20 ” x 16″ The geometric forms in Paul Klee’s compositions have always fascinated me. There is a natural rhythm to his...