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I was born in 1972 in Phoenix, Arizona, in the United States. Both of my parents were journalists and my father was the foreign war correspondent for Newsweek Magazine at the time (and later a novelist), so we never spent a long time in any one place. Moving from one country to another every one or two years, greatly shaped both myself as a person and my relationship with art. The more we travelled, the more time I began spending on my own drawing and painting. As this continued, art began to become more and more important to me. My parents, both having writing backgrounds, were very supportive and encouraged me to follow my artistic interests. After living in Vietnam, Lebanon, Kenya, and several places in the U.S., my family finally settled in Philadelphia, where I spent my formative years, and started to become serious in following an art career. After high school, I applied to several art schools and went to study 'illustration' at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. During my time at university, I spent a summer teaching at a children's art camp, where I met fellow British artist Paula McArdle, who I have since married. I took a year off from RISD (my university) to spend a year studying with Paula at the art college at the University of Brighton, which was also my introduction to England. I count this time as one of the most important growing periods of my personal and artistic life: I had the freedom to artistically explore and spent most of my time working. I returned back to the U.S., finished my final year of University and graduated in 1995. I then moved back to Philadelphia and spent the next five years working as a freelance illustrator. During these years, I worked for several newspapers, magazines, book publishers, and corporate clients, building up a name, and have been fortunate to receive several U.S. national awards and honours in recognition of my work. In 2001, I married and moved to England full-time, where my wife and I now live in the Midlands. On coming to England, I began working on more personal work and have found that exploring my own subjects, emotions, and experiences artistically has led to what I consider the second important artistic growing period in my life. I've found this personal approach and work so much more fulfilling, interesting, and exciting. I sent samples to Washington Green and it was this new work that caught the eye of Glyn Washington.
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