What keeps me motivated between exhibitions?

One of the questions I’m asked most often is what keeps me painting between exhibitions. With only one exhibition every two years, there are long stretches where there are no deadlines, no opening nights, and no audience waiting to see the next body of work. From the outside, it might seem difficult to stay motivated. For me, however, the answer has never really been about motivation. It has always been about enjoying the process.

Painting has become part of the rhythm of my life. After nearly four decades in the studio, I know that every finished work begins with a series of small, ordinary tasks. A sketchbook on the table. A blank canvas waiting to be stretched. Brushes to clean. Colours to mix. None of these moments are particularly dramatic on their own, but together they quietly build towards the next painting.

Planning has become one of the most valuable tools I have. I like knowing where I am heading over the coming weeks and months, not because I want to rush the work, but because I don’t. Oil painting rewards patience. Certain colours take much longer to dry than others, especially when working from dark passages towards lighter areas that will eventually receive transparent glazes. The painting often decides the timetable, and I have learnt to respect that. Trying to hurry the process rarely ends well, and can even create problems years later as the surface begins to crack or craze.

The greatest challenges, though, are rarely technical. They are psychological.

Painting asks for a curious balance between knowledge and instinct. Experience teaches us how to solve problems, yet sometimes knowing too much can become its own obstacle. There are days when the mind wants to analyse every brushstroke instead of simply responding to what is happening on the canvas. The best sessions are usually the ones where thought gradually gives way to intuition. Hours pass unnoticed, and the painting begins to reveal itself.

There are other traps waiting as well. Every artist knows the temptation to keep refining a painting long after it has said everything it needs to say. Equally dangerous is abandoning it just before the final breakthrough. Then there is what I call the “magpie problem”. A fresh idea arrives, bright and exciting, making it tempting to leave the current painting unfinished while chasing the next one. Experience has taught me that most ideas can wait. The painting in front of me deserves my full attention.

It is also easy to judge ourselves by numbers. Finished paintings. Followers. Sales. They all have their place, but they are poor measures of a creative life. The moment painting becomes little more than a ledger, something important is lost. Curiosity gives way to calculation, and the joy of discovery slowly disappears.

Winter can test that outlook. There are days when I arrive at the studio in darkness and leave in darkness. The cold settles into the building, and summer feels a long way off. Yet even then, once the first brushstroke goes onto the canvas, the outside world begins to fade. The seasons still matter, but the painting matters more.

Whenever I find myself questioning the work, I return to the same simple truth. Painting is my happy place. It is where ideas become stories, memories find their colours, and ordinary objects are given another life. It is also why I have never been drawn to commissions. The freedom to follow my own curiosity has shaped every painting I have made, and I hope it always will.

Perhaps that is what keeps me returning to the studio year after year. Not the next exhibition, nor the next sale, but the quiet excitement of wondering where the next idea might lead.