Go Play In Your Own Street

I am self-taught artist born in the famous mining town of Ashington and now living on the outskirts of Newcastle. My artwork takes its lead from memories of childhood, growing up and playing out in the backstreets of north east towns and villages like Ashington, Morpeth, Pegswood and Ellington. Those streets were our playground and how we loved playing out in them, the games we invented and played, the laughter, the tears, the skinned knees and lets not forget mischief we got up to also.

My early years were spent in Ashington, the home of the famous World Cup winning Charlton brothers and it's this connection with football which earned me the nickname 'Deetz'. Don't ask me how or why but it's stuck with me ever since, so much that as to this day I still sign my work with this name.

When I was nine, we moved to another mining village, Ellington, where I stayed for nearly 40 years until moving to my current home in Newcastle. I started drawing as a young boy and fell in love with it, drawing my favourite footballers, popstars and album covers and it was assumed I would end up in the artworld in some way. However it didn't turn out that way and off I went to work, firstly as a spray painter and then into heavy industry and my art fell away.

Out of curiosity, and after a near twenty year sabbatical I decided to pick up a pencil and see if I could still draw. One thing led to another and pencils became pastels and then pastels became oils as my work gathered more popularity and my reputation grew to the point that after being made redundant I decided to make it my full-time profession. My hope is that through my work, I can help to keep alive those memories of a more innocent time that has now sadly gone.