I have only recently started my own creative business TRA Dingle Original Artwork, but have enjoyed art for as long as I can remember. I have drawn and painted from an early age and began art A level at school, but dropped this after the first year in order to concentrate on the subjects I would need for university. This did however give me a good grounding in art history and drawing skills.

I began seriously painting in oils in 1991, developing a style mainly using different palette knives to build shapes in a thick layer of paint. Since 2002 I have mainly worked in acrylics, which I find gives me more freedom to express my ideas, in different styles, but often working with broad flat brushes to accent the horizontal and creating semi abstract images of the coast and countryside in the area I am based in. I am also interested in simple designs created by nature or man, interpreting these in acrylics using a limited range of colours and often accentuating this with texture. I mainly paint onto canvas, of varying sizes ranging from 6”x4” to 2’x3’, preferring to paint around the edge and leaving the work unframed. I also paint onto board and heavy paper.

I have had works exhibited in the Ferens Open Exhibition, in 2003 two of my acrylics were exhibitied at Hull University as part of the Fusion exhibition. I am also part of Hull Contemporary Artists, and six of my works were in an exhibition at Take 5 at Hull Screen in December 2004.

I have also been involved in photography for the past twenty years, having had photographs exhibited in camera club exhibitions and other venues over the years. These include Rotherham Photographic Society and Yorkshire Photographic Union in 1986/7, and more recently the Ferens Winter Exhibition, Princes Quay Shopping Centre (Hull), my employer's head office, and most recently the EICH Gallery (University of Lincoln at Hull). I have also had my photographs published in photographic magazines and as part of an article in a local history book.

I use a variety of formats and film types, I personally prefer monochrome and usually print my own work on traditional matt photographic paper. I look for the interplay of light, shade and texture with my main subjects being streetscenes and architecture. In colour I mainly concentrate on landscape in medium format and natural details in 35mm, often using a macro lens to produce life size images on the film, with woodland and the beach being my favoured locations. I use both transparency and colour negative film.