Above: Haydons 'Pleasure in Labour' (2003).
William Morris inspired painting of the old grocery shop opposite my home, and a tribute to June who worked in the shop all her life serving the local public.  Acrylic Paint and Aluminum Mesh. Private Collection, D Jones and J Morris Directors of the Business Design Centre, Islington, London 'Fresh Art'

Painting practice:

I've been making physical mesh paintings for several years; a process like screen printing, that came from playful attempts to manually replicate the offset lithography printing process used to print billboard posters (before they all went digital).

I push acrylic paint through perforated aluminum mesh, dry the paint, remove/poke out parts of the dry paint and then repeat by pushing a new colour layer of paint through the exposed holes, until I have a desired image. I work from behind and I don’t see the image until after the paint has been pushed through the holes. I use paper templates to help guide the image, which is mostly representational imagery. The process restricts expressive or gestural movements, it’s a mechanical process. I enjoy the challenge and constraints of the process and the tension between mechanical and human, handmade.

Over the past year I have been exploring ‘digital twin’ versions of my mesh painting technique, exploring various digital processes from virtual reality, animation to GANs. See digital twin experimentation and NFTs

Above: Butlins 1977 (2014).
Butlins family portrait , painting from a photograph taken 1977.  Acrylic Paint and Aluminum mesh

Above: 'The Boat' (2006). Exhibited at the National Maritime Museum along side Lowry’s Man in a bowler hat. Part of the re:INVENTING exhibition 22nd May – 28th July 2006.

Inspired by Lowry’s, particular sense of isolation and emptiness in Lowry’s Man in Bowler Hat and the simplicity of Glasgow Docks paintings. The Boat image is copied from a photograph of a small boat taken in passing from the top deck of a channel ferry. The raised viewpoint on a passing scene is reminiscent of Lowry’s paintings. The Boat painting shows an isolated boat, its location unidentified by land or sea, its figures defined only by a few dots of colour, and the viewer looks down on the toy-like scene. Acrylic Paint and perforated mesh.  Acrylic Paint and Aluminum Mesh

Above: Defunct football ground (2002).
Abandoned home of Wimbledon FC Plough Lane before demolition. The painting of an empty defunct football terrace was inspired by my interest in places, objects and things that have come to the end of their lives. Exhibited, Cork Street, London, Dangerous Corners Exhibition. Collection of The Professional Football Association (PFA) Manchester. Acrylic Paint and Aluminum Mesh.

See more about the Plogh Lane, Defunct football ground work here: a series work inspired by of Plough Lane

Above: Morley and me.
This painting was inspired by a piece of documentary footage at a Malcolm Morley exhibition at The Hayward Gallery, in the film Morley was painting outside he had an easel and stool and was busy painting a picture of a tiger, for a moment I thought he maybe painting direct from life but as the camera pans out you see he’s actually painting an advertisement of a tiger, displayed on the side of a coach, parked in a safari car park. On leaving the exhibition I picked up an exhibition poster and transcribed a section of this picture, I aimed to question my relationship to the picture and it to me, in a way I claimed the imaged for myself therefore a viewer who is not familiar with the original picture or its context will judge it within the context of my practice and not its original context. Unintentionally the man in the picture has a slight resemblance to myself, so the painting could easily be mistaken as one of my own holiday snaps (this has happened). More interesting those who are familiar with the original are likely to dismiss my work as a cheep imitation.

Above: Hundreds & Thousands (2018). Acrylic Paint & Aluminium Mesh. Exhibited DRAWN BEYOND exhibition, 23 April - 11 May 2018.

Above: May un Mar Lady empty living room (2008)
This 12ft by 6ft painting was created for a retrospective exhibition of my father 'Dave Follows' life work as a cartoonist. The painting was created using fragments of cartoons, montaged together from different cartoons to make an empty panoramic living room view, the empty room signifies the loss of my father and the characters he drew who inhabited this cartoon room for over 25 years.

Above: Red & Blue Worlds
Two world maps with bags of extracted paint. Acrylic Paint and Aluminum Mesh.