01 of 10

Over the last four years I have developed a sequence of works that explore the mysterious quality of quotidian objects and places. It began with three weeks wandering the streets of west London, drawing small fragments of the urban environment. Making tiny visual notes became a way of discovering unexpected subject matter, without the burden of narrative, symbolism or metaphor. During those lost days of aimless reverie I was often overwhelmed by the poignant beauty of the mundane. The discovery that anything could become a motif caused me to reappraise my immediate surroundings with fresh eyes. I find a sense of quietude and interiority in painting the prosaic elements of my life. It is the common ground of the present, a lexicon of the vernacular.

I want to make outwardly visible the potential of our hidden relationship with all things. The 17C Laudian divine, Thomas Treherne, believed we were intended for felicity, a profound state of rightness or fulfilment. My ambition is to convey glimpses of this possibility in the midst of ordinary life, or at least a yearning after this epiphany of connectedness. Perhaps my work mostly expresses an unresolved condition, more akin to limbo than ecstasy.