“The Hackney Pomegranate (No.1)” February 2019. Acrylic on found wooden board, 21cm x 15cm and “The Ridley Road Lemon and The Hackney Pomegranate” (February 2019). Acrylic on found wooden board, 30cm x 20cm. were both painted at the end of last week, the Ridley Road Lemon, has already been painted a number of times in the last few days. There is a pleasure in just exploring something with paint

This series of fruit studies is about nothing more than simply enjoying colour and getting back to enjoying paint and painting, they’re not particularly being painted for a show or an event or some kind of whatever, in fact I’m taking a little step back from shows and events for a little bit just to enjoy paint for a bit.  Yesterday I found a lime lying on the Hackney pavement, it was just lying there on the street in the Sunday morning sunshine. Really didn’t enjoy putting on that last Cultivate show, I enjoyed hanging it, I enjoyed most of the art and it was good to see so many people come along to see it over a cold wet long weekend in January, I have mostly, since that show ended and the participating artists all descended like a swarm of locusts at the end of it all to pick the gallery clean and leave us with the empty shell of a space in a matter of minutes, I have mostly been quietly enjoying painting unassuming studies of fruit, fresh layers on paintings that had already been started. Putting on shows for other artists can be such a thanklessly draining one way street, pass the lime, battling with fruit is good for the soul…