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My father, Ray Burgoyne, who has died aged 80, was a painter, carpenter and musician. He first exhibited his paintings in the late 1980s, and spent the next 30 years organising countless exhibitions across the Essex and Suffolk coastline.

Ray was self-taught and arrived in the art world with a seemingly fully realised, studied vision. The extensive body of work he produced mirrored the abstract ballad that was his life – romantic, unpredictable, filled with both childlike simplicity and dark complexity, featuring carnivalesque characters, forgotten landscapes, and painted in pure, deep colours.

Born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, Ray was the youngest of two children of Joseph Burgoyne, a greengrocer, and Dolly (nee Nash), who managed the paperwork for her husband’s shops. Ray’s early life, characterised by fierce independence, was spent trying to ride on the back of his pet pig, Rosie, pretending to be one of Alan Ladd’s cowboys, fishing at the end of the pier and drinking in seafront dance halls to the soundtrack of the Shirelles.

Ray dreamed of going to art school, but after leaving Wentworth high school for boys, aged 14, was sent to work at a cabinet maker’s as an apprentice carpenter.

By the early 60s, Ray was at the heart of the emerging mod scene in Southend as a founding member and drummer for the Flowerpots, a local rhythm and blues band who opened for the Animals and the Who. He stayed in the band until 1966.

In 1968 he married Sylvia, and they had four children, Claire, Paul, Helen and Sam. Ray continued to work as a carpenter, at a boat-building yard in Leigh-on-Sea, doing shop fitting and antique restoration around Essex, and installing shows for the Design Centre in central London.

In the mid-70s, he became master carpenter at the Palace theatre in Westcliff-on-Sea, building and constructing sets for repertory productions.

Ray and Sylvia divorced in 1986, and Ray married Gilly, a student nurse, later that year. They had two children, Phelan and me.

After the family moved to the village of Friston, in Suffolk, in 1999, Ray finally became a full-time artist. He exhibited both solo and in groups, primarily in the nearby seaside town of Aldeburgh, with established and fledgling artists.

When viewing his more abstract paintings, typically characterised by thick oil application and conjured shapes, he was often confronted with the question: “So, what is it actually meant to be?” to which he would reply with that unmistakable Ray smile, “It’s whatever you think it is.”

He is survived by Gilly, his six children and 15 grandchildren.