John Percy, Ecological Salad, 2023, Oil on canvas, 62 × 81cm

Born in London in 1948 and trained in graphic design at Ravensbourne College of Art, John worked in animation until 1989 but began painting seriously in 1985 and began exhibiting in 1987. He has work in several corporate and private collections and is currently based in Berkshire with a studio in Reading where he is currently working on a series of gestural abstracts begun in the 2020 lockdown which explore the process of choice, decision and chance and his sense of the precarious balance between necessary order and desirable anarchy in our lives. Chance has been an important element in my work for many years. In life chance events can force a complete change of direction and so it is in painting. The best laid plans of mice and men can be completely overturned by chance events. I build my paintings using the theory of Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions where a random initial stage sets the ongoing process of choice from colours available, decisions on how and where to place those colours and techniques that force an element of chance. The last stage of pouring can sometimes force a complete repaint.