I was born in the UK in 1953. I began painting in my teens, first guided by the Scottish artist Nell Todd and later while studying at Cambridge University, where I exhibited at King’s College and Kettle’s Yard. Initially, I followed a scientific path: after graduation, I moved to France, completed a PhD, and worked as a biochemist, while continuing my studies in drawing at the Paris municipal art school on the Place des Vosges.

In 1981, I left science entirely to focus on art. I trained with Nicolas Wacker at the École des Beaux-Arts and then spent two years under the guidance of Zao Wou-Ki at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. After a year in Rome, I became a full-time artist in 1982, working in Paris until 2004, when I moved to Sicily. I now live and work in Palermo.

A book about my work by Julia Rajacic, with a preface by Jade Lu and contributions by Anne Lediberder and Michael de Saint-Cheron, was published in January 2026. Copies can be purchased from the artist, and a digital version will soon be available online.

My work has always been driven by movement. Even in early landscape studies, I explored motion—water, foliage, sky. Once I learned to draw the figure, the moving human body became central. In the 1980s I painted pedestrians in urban spaces and punk musicians performing in tight city venues. From the 1990s onward, I worked directly with dancers and contemporary circus artists, focusing on bodies in motion—falling, spinning, and moments of jeopardy.

Most of the paintings presented here concern the moving human figure, created in collaboration with dancers, circus artists, divers, and other models in Paris, France, and Sicily. They are multi-figure compositions of divers and circus artists suspended in electric yellow or deep blue environments, or positioned over horizons between sea and sky or land and sky. Figures may be arranged geometrically, creating almost mathematical structures, or in chaotic falls. Silhouettes form a kinetic script, like hieroglyphs in motion.