These are some early details from a series of works I’m working on concurrently in 2022. Anticlockwise from this top left and beneath, details from two canvases which started as a long 3 metre triptych (but I ran out of puff sorry). First one is called “Made in Taiwan”; the second is called “Supernature”. They are inspired by music from the late 70s. During the lockdowns I was listening to a lot of 70s Euro disco.

This is a homage also to 70s Europop and disco anthems like Marc Cerrone and his classic dance hit Supernature, which to me during the early Covid19 lockdowns was really prophetic. The painting has references to an Egyptian God escorting the dead, our constantly changing attitudes to death throughout the Millennia from the gruesome to the spiritual, our internal monsters manifesting in the growth of the far-right, and Marilyn because, well, who wouldn’t want Marilyn dancing on your grave, especially since this painting is part of a theme across several canvases which I titled: Shadow Dancing. It is painting about our ecosystem fighting back.

Bildungsroman is a self-portrait which continues my exploration of the universal spiritual and philosophical canon to ‘Know Thyself’. I have followed a multi-faith journey held together by the creation of a personal God that expresses my own culture. We talk in private, so painting us speaking in metaphors maintain that sacredness…

I somehow got chatting with Prof Victoria Pagan, an expert in classic literature at the University of Florida in the US who was teaching an undergraduate class on The Oresteia. My painting A Many Splendored Thing (2020), and the Furies became a trigger for a class discussion.

Not many people saw this painting, because Covid-19 hit hard as this exhibition just got started. I was short-listed for the Collie Art Prize with this work, but they had to close down early for the lockdown. I hope it gets a longer viewing because it is my spiritual diary during these times. 2020 was so disturbing and disorienting for us all.