“Tick-tock, tick-tock,” the quiet passing of time: light glints on a mirror, shadows real as the objects casting them. Objects with histories known and unknown.  Dried lavender, hydrangea, poppy, honesty, old rope from the sea: I endeavour to give them a new life in my paintings. The results are a combination of the figurative structured by the abstract.

Where possible I work from life, using lighting to create the scene, but sometimes the transitory nature of the subject, or its placing, involves working from photographs. One painting follows another, then it doesn’t and I have to cast about and see what comes up. I have been working like this for nearly 20 years after moving into an old house built in 1712. The original features such as worn cellar steps, beams and spice cupboards made me want to paint them.