Painting in the winter morning sunlight feels fresh, and I am surprised at how much I am getting into this set of canvases. They are all the same size but have different textured linen. Some are raw linen and soak up everything, giving the effect of a chalk pastel. Others are stretched with this fine portrait linen which makes the paint giddy with the fluidity of movement. These paintings have an inherent memory of places and backgrounds. They might grow up to be…

Routes are created by choices, taking you to known spaces or surprises. Paintings take many paths. When I start to work on a new canvas, I have no idea where it will go, literally and figuratively. So I take any chance to travel and bring my work with me in whatever form possible, like these paintings I started in Ireland and brought to Italy. I like the (long!) drive to Italy - it’s a great time for …

I started this painting by drawing sculpture shapes into a large canvas. I was enjoying myself, and it soon became quite busy. I used a light blue wash to tone it down, but I wanted the drawn elements to be visible underneath. The overall effect was that the painting took on the sense of a stone, so I added the large abstract flowers to bring back some life. Then I began to paint in earnest. At first, randomly, then instinctively. At this stage, I put the canvas …

This is the journey of “Acrobats and Flowers”, one of the oil paintings in my solo show currently on view at John Martin Gallery in London. I got really into painting these black linear shapes on a red canvas but ended up painting over it in the end. It gave me the idea of painting vertical lines as a central feature, and this is the canvas that absorbed …