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"Charles' art is a reflection of his calm, contemplative character. Each canvas evolves steadily and naturally, portraying either the quiet thoughts after a passage of Mozart, reconstructed in layers of colour, or the deep, intense passions of Spain. Wistful moments too are freely created as the paint is allowed to dictate its own course, enabling our own feelings and thoughts to wander."

(Hayley Savage, composer)

part of me is serious and studious and part of me is playful and childish

friends say whenever I go away anywhere "Oh, you'll find lots of inspiration for paintings in the landscape/city/(wherever I'm off to)" and I say to myself "yeah, it's not what you think, I'm gonna be walking and seeing things and meeting people and dancing and have no time for painting, I'll be up to my eyeballs in new experiences and start questioning everything all over again and it's gonna take a while before it bubbles to the surface in my art"

some people just like my realistic work, some only like the abstract work, some the photographic work, maybe it is what they are used to? I didn't much go for old master paintings when I was a kid

I saw some paintings in the Prado by Botticelli the other day that were wonderful the way he created perspective by the placement of trees, no naturalistic shadows, just colours and scale. I like that there are different perspectives in art, it's something I have been exploring through stereo-photography and subsequent paintings based on these. stereo-photography has a quality all of it's own which is quite magical

one of the stereo-photos is of the sofa where my grandfather used to sit in front of his old 70s television set, it is bathed in a halo of sunlight from a window and surrounded by reflections in numerous framed photos of family on the walls behind. another is of clouds over France viewed from above on 9 Sept 2001. I'd like to exhibit just that single stereo-photo with a series of watercolours one day

I've got this photo I took of a dead cow and I was wondering how it would work alongside my other work and in the end it went beautifully. the colours echoed my watercolours as did the texture of the skin which looks as delicate as thin paper. most people seeing it for the first time took a long time to realise what it was of

most of my paintings have stories around them. it's not that they necessarily tell a story, sometimes the story will be about how the image came about, sometimes what was happening at the time of the painting can resonate with the work, sometimes other people's ideas attach themselves to the story of the work, and then there are the paintings that have been bought because someone has seen their own story in them

an elderly lady who bought one of my abstract watercolours in my last exhibition found after she got it home that the title (I called it just the date it was done) was the day her husband had died two years before

these are a few random thoughts from Madrid, 30 December 2003

La Sundari

2005
oil on window shutters
158 x 150 cm

A L Clayton in browns

2001
watercolour on paper
27.5 x 19 cm

A L Clayton in thought

2001
watercolour on paper
25.5 x 17 cm

Reflection

2002
oil on canvas
61 x 71.5 cm

Resonance

2003
oil on canvas
91.5 x 101.5 cm

Zelle

2004
watercolour on paper
45.5 x 35.5 cm

Retrato de una mujer

2004
watercolour on paper
55 x 42 cm

La Sundari

2005
oil on window shutters
158 x 150