I’ve thought about it long and hard, and I’ve decided I do classify myself as an artist. Art is about putting yourself out there to allow people to see something. They can like what they see, or not like what they see, but that’s up to them. What’s up the artist is producing the creative output, and that’s something I try really hard to make sure I do.

I guess the biggest difficulty is trying to tread the line of embodying what people think an artist should be, and not being a pretentious wanker. Personally, I try to bring a bit of fun to proceedings, and whilst I put effort into trying to get my work out there, I also try not to take things too seriously. For example, my day job is actually for a large corporate company, but my CV starts as follows:

<aside> 📌 Hi, I’m Dan. It feels impersonal to just put facts on a page, so I thought it was worth making more space to give a friendly ‘hello’.

</aside>

That feels a little different, and a little bit like someone who is aware enough to realise that people are people, so just to try and engage as a human. I think that’s what it comes down to, and that’s why the most important thing to me about my paintings are the stories behind them.

I’m in my early thirties, I find painting fun, and I think a lot of that is from not putting too much pressure on it. I try and make sure I’m always undertaking some creative endeavour, and am very much still figuring out elements of my approach as I go. But I think there’s something quite cute and accessible about that. Hopefully you do too.

What’s my main goal? Well if I’m 100% honest, I wrote a book and want to get it published, so if you can help with that then let’s have a chat.