My first serious art project began with what seemed like a small and ordinary moment — a visit to my local council allotment site
It was there that the humble garden shed became my obsession. For the next several years I found myself drawn deeper into these spaces. I travelled to allotment sites across the UK, capturing the character of sheds, lean-tos, and improvised structures that stood like monuments to patience and ingenuity. Each one seemed to hold a story — layers of paint, repaired boards, fading colours, and handmade fixes that revealed decades of care and use.
Building A Lasting Legacy Through Art
As my work gained recognition, I began to realise something important: in the art world it’s not enough simply to be a good painter.
To build a lasting career you have to stand out. You need a voice, a perspective, something unmistakably your own.
Not long after moving into my studio, I started a series of paintings of garden sheds and the old garages tucked behind terraced houses. Many of these places stirred memories from my childhood.
𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘑𝘰𝘦 𝘚𝘸𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘎𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘏𝘘
Layers Of Weathered History
Each shed seemed to hold a secret history — the faded paint, the repaired doors, the odd colours layered over one another. As a painter I felt a connection between these surfaces and the act of painting itself. The weathered layers of colour looked like accidental artworks created over decades.
A Friendship Blooms
In 2006 I volunteered as a helper to an allotment gardener named Bob Andrew, a man in his eighties, a veteran who had tended his plot at Woodmeadow Allotments in Mossley for more than forty years. I remember wandering between the plots, noticing the patched-up sheds, odd collections of tools, mismatched panels of wood, and doors that had clearly lived several previous lives. Bob had a double-sized plot and an incredible knowledge of the land.
At first my intention was purely artistic — I wanted closer access to the environment and the sheds, planning to document a single year on the allotment through painting.
𝘗𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩 © 𝘈𝘭𝘶𝘯 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘳
A Labour Of Love
As the seasons passed, I began to understand the rhythm of the place — the soil, the weather, the patience required to grow vegetables in the north. Bob knew his stuff: which varieties worked best in our local climate, how the soil behaved after rain, when to plant, when to wait. Slowly I found myself becoming part of the process as well as observing it for my painting inspiration.
As Bob became more frail, I took over his plot and promised to use the knowledge he passed on to grow my own vegetables.
A Ten Year Journey
What started as a one-year painting project gradually became something much larger and more important — a ten-year artist's journey documenting overlooked spaces and the characters who shaped them.
You can view a selection of available allotment works from my archives here
𝘙𝘐𝘗 𝘉𝘰𝘣 𝘈𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘸