During the sixties I trained in three London art schools gaining the required art qualifications of the day and the Royal Academy Schools Certificate.

Emerging comparatively late as an artist I was obliged to find employment in both related and non related fields.
I trained as an art therapist and practised in various psychiatric settings. In the eighties I worked in children’s homes and later qualified as a social worker. I then worked in a Local Authority Social Services adult disability team for thirteen years and finally part time in an independent hospital for people suffering from treatment resistant mental health problems.

Endeavouring to become a competent draughtsman was my main objective as an artist and over the years I have produced thousands of drawings. Allied to this was a powerful inclination to represent 3D images on a 2D surface, the magic of which has never escaped me.

Although many regard representational art and even painting itself as obsolete, the natural urge to depict what we see is very much alive as the popularity of Hockney and Freud testifies. The work of Picasso, Earnst, Mondrian and De Stael, which I love as much as anyone, liberated colour, form and composition from their confines in literal representation. This in turn has led to a reappraisal of painting through the centuries and those artists who have prevailed excelled in their awareness and integration of these elements. They are essential to good abstract and good representational painting alike and central to my creative aspirations.

I owe my perseverance as an artist to many people who have encouraged me when I felt my work was a desperately lost cause. For his finely tuned understanding of the technical challenges of representational painting and much more, I am indebted to the late Robert Lenkeiwicz. Also my uncle the late Morris Weidman, a pearl of 20th Century painting whose work deserves a great deal more attention than it has so far received, was a wise and caring guide.

12.12.06 ~ Milton Delany