Assorted Essays

Flowers appear in all three works, but they play very different roles. Across Special Guest, Secret Admirer and Summer in a Vase, they move from carefully arranged symbols of expectation, to a vulnerable gesture left on a doorstep, and finally to the exuberant subject...

Six years separate We Come in Peace and Shoot to Kill, yet the two works feel like consecutive chapters in the same miniature war. The same magnificent red tin robot towers over an army of tiny green soldiers, but somewhere between 2014 and 2020 the mood has changed....

  The same pond yachts sail through both paintings, yet they seem to inhabit entirely different worlds. One glides across the familiar calm of a suburban swimming pool at twilight, the other drifts through an elevated harbour suspended above a modern city. Together...

At first glance, Bluebird and Unchartered Waters celebrate miniature machines. One is a streamlined land-speed racer poised on a suburban street, the other a small speedboat gliding across tranquil water. Yet beneath their playful subjects lies a deeper connection....

Both Freedom and Final Flight revolve around the same motif: a simple model aeroplane gliding above a suburban fence. At first glance, they appear to describe the same moment from different days, yet together they tell a broader story about aspiration, memory and the...

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...

      A whole lot of mischief 🐾   In Travelling Companions, we first meet Jack, though he does not announce himself. He is under the seat, half in shadow, half in light, watching. Beside him stands Toby, otherwise known as Toblerone: black, bristling, alert to the...

      Thresholds The first four paintings in the 1 in 100 series – 1 Decision, 2 Special Guest, 3 Surprise, and 4 Intentions (2009) – form a quiet prologue. They establish not only a narrative arc but a language of colour and restraint that the series continues to...

We all start with a blank canvas. Every artist develops their style. But what is a style? How do we make it our own? There are ways you can intentionally work on finding your art style, but this might sound overwhelming and scary. I often hear the frustration of...

My Sketchbook When people open a sketchbook, they expect the first image to be fantastic and a captivating book of art that draws them in from the beginning, every page a masterpiece of finished art. But for me, my sketchbooks are a world apart from that expectation....

I am Alice In 2013, Jo—my partner, co-conspirator, and the person most likely to calmly announce life-changing decisions over dinner—told me we needed a dog. Not wanted. Needed. I heard the word the way you hear someone suggest buying a second fridge or moving...