Mad May. Glorious, rainy, sunlit May. It feels like the work I’ve been making, with my brow knitted in a quiet studio over Winter, is suddenly tumbling out into the world and I love it! On the first hot evening this year I was delighted to show my new painting I Paint What I Want to See at the Opening of Soho Revue’s group show Inside/Outside.
It was accompanied by my painting Chalk Factory Still Life, in a show about memories that get held in spaces - curated by Charlie Siddick.
And this month I’m joining the Partnership Editions May Drop with six paintings and two drawings. Painted in the studio alongside I Paint What I Want to See, this is a series of still lives and portraits reflecting quietly on a year past, in calm and muted palettes, with an ever constant theme of rest. Click here to view the full collection.
From my sketchbook...
This drawing was made in the workshop of J.M.Smith Framing in Bristol - an old friend and most intuitive framer.
Joshua frames my paintings in beautifully thin Saeple frames - they are perfect homages to a particular style of baton framing that students used at the Slade in the 60s which I have always loved.
His frames feel like a line being drawn in a sturdy pencil around my paintings to say - it’s done!
Would you rather?...with Joshua Smith of J.M.Smith Framing
Would you rather dauphinoise or Jacket potato? Jacket Potato. When the gas and electricity prices sky rocketed a year or two ago, we started this scheme in our neighbourhood where one person would bake up to 23 potatoes on a Wednesday night and then everyone would come and collect their baked potatoes and take them home to eat with their own fillings. One oven to bake all the potatoes meaning 22 other people didn’t have to use theirs. That's what a jacket potato means.
What recipe do you cook for your loved ones? It would have to be brunch. Whether its fry up or ? always eggs and toast. Because it’s my loved ones that come and stay with us, so it’s those who have stuck around until the morning who are the recipients of my brunches.
What do you cook when you’re sick? For me it’s feed a fever, feed a cold. All meals will be eaten on the sofa - shop bought pizzas & stuffed pasta - nothing that takes kitchen time and everything that maxes film time.
What is Studio Lunch Studio lunch is always last night’s dinner and if there’s no leftovers it’s a Lidl croissant with Maasdam cheese because croissants and cheese always feel like a holiday.
Would you rather dauphinoise or Jacket potato? Jacket Potato. When the gas and electricity prices sky rocketed a year or two ago, we started this scheme in our neighbourhood where one person would bake up to 23 potatoes on a Wednesday night and then everyone would come and collect their baked potatoes and take them home to eat with their own fillings. One oven to bake all the potatoes meaning 22 other people didn’t have to use theirs. That's what a jacket potato means.
What recipe do you cook for your loved ones? It would have to be brunch. Whether its fry up or ? always eggs and toast. Because it’s my loved ones that come and stay with us, so it’s those who have stuck around until the morning who are the recipients of my brunches.
What do you cook when you’re sick? For me it’s feed a fever, feed a cold. All meals will be eaten on the sofa - shop bought pizzas & stuffed pasta - nothing that takes kitchen time and everything that maxes film time.
What is Studio Lunch Studio lunch is always last night’s dinner and if there’s no leftovers it’s a Lidl croissant with Maasdam cheese because croissants and cheese always feel like a holiday.
From the studio wall is I Paint what I Want to See which is the biggest painting I have made so far. Each of the layered frameworks - the window, the phone, the pictures on the wall, the ephemera on the table, the mirror - seek to tell stories of a time period I spent in one house.
Objects are used as placeholders for my own experiences of seasonal ritual, joy, rest, sex, loss, illness, self care and living in times where we are witnessing such pain in the world.
I hope the slightly oversized scale helps to envelop the viewer in a room of my own making, a room of memories and conclusions.
Whilst painting it, I particularly enjoyed the moment when the mushrooms grew around the side of my panel and over my palette.
Whilst painting it, I particularly enjoyed the moment when the mushrooms grew around the side of my panel and over my palette.
