The palomar at the former Finca San Miguel is an ornate Modernista dovecote built at the site of a spring that for many years supplied the city of Almeria with water. The palomar is about one third scale of a full size building such that what surrounds it appears out of scale to it. It is at once a real place and one which appears unreal.

The location is about 40kms from where I lived, down a long track behind a sea of plasticos (the huge areas of greenhouses that surround Almeria). These balsas (reservoirs) were once the water source for Almeria. Around the turn of the century a highly ornate Modernista and palatial palomar was built over the source. The Palomar is around five meters tall, however it appears as if a huge apartment block has been transplanted from the Eixample in Barcelona. It is part of part of a grand old finca, now a ramshackle riding school. To gain access I asked the stable lad (a huge heavy set fellow with the loudest leaf blower I've ever heard which he was using to muck out the horses i.e. blowing dry horse shit into voluminous clouds) if I could take some photo's of it and his reply was; 'good luck trying to get down there amigo, and be careful of the electrified fences - they're for horses and will knock you over'. Re-tracing my steps down the hill, over the ten foot wrought iron gate hidden behind weeds, dodging then befriending the inevitable dog, warily following the contour for a few hundred meters I finally arrived at the far end of the balsa and as I did so a Great Egret took off, I then waited half an hour until the sun went behind the ridge behind the folly so I could get a few shots, make sketches and notes.

To discover the sorts of places that form the basis of my paintings I do a lot of walking and driving about, following one's nose and by not being shy - and in the south eastern part of Spain there are a lot of grumpy hunter/Vox types that carry shotguns. There are also a lot migrant workers looking for a roof over their head, and many tempting looking ruined or semi ruined buildings some of which are occupied by those workers. From experience I very much look like a problem from both groups unless and until I can explain my presence.

However my landscape paintings exist within the long tradition of the painted image being elaborate compositions constructed from the source sketches, ideas and photo reference and rarely simply a representation or transcription of a single scene. As always happens throughout the whole process of making a painting; from the initial glimpse of an idea, composing, drafting up, painting until the last stroke of the brush a lifetime's worth of imagery, influences and learning come into play sometimes consciously but more often unconsciously. Here at various times I was thinking about, among others Rene Magritte, Bernardo Bellotto, Fernand Khnopff, Constable, J R Cozens and Corot.

Andalucia so the erroneous etymology has it is The Land of Light and despite having spent much time there I am to a certain extent a temperamentally northern painter in a similar sense to that described by Jonathan Meades as being within a School of Saenredam who made paintings predominantly of church interiors where; 'nothing happens in a most emphatic way … they persuade the viewer to wonder what is not being shown. And they imply a metaphysical mystery in places pregnant with possibility where something may or may not be about to happen.’