Cirencester Streets
Above: Close-up detail from: 'Dollar Street, Cirencester', Oil on panel, 2022
'I'm trying to get past the realism i.e. what it looks like. Sometimes you have to keep going until you don't recognise it any more, until it looks different somehow.
I try to work on the painting until there's an opportunity in which I can grab a glimpse of things changing. This can happen when I don't recognise say, cars or windows any more as I think I should do.
It can happen when I let go of what I'm doing and forget myself. Then those 'cars' or 'windows' become real to me in the picture, in an unknown way, and the picture begins to work alright and makes perfect sense, but in a way I couldn't have predicted.'
Above: The early stages of 'Dollar Street', Working outside I revisited and reworked this painting over seven times on different days, always working outside, often just sitting on the ground.
