Winter isn’t summer gone wrong.

Winter isn’t summer gone wrong. Rest doesn’t mean you’ve failed to work, and a quiet season in your life doesn’t mean something is broken. The same goes for painting: a season of making less doesn’t mean you’ve stopped being an artist. You don’t have to keep everything in balance all the time. You have to recognise the season you’re in, and stop farming against the weather.

Alla visiting me in the studio.

Painting involves receiving, rather than always forcing something into existence.

Wait for more information or stimulation. I keep coming back to that line for my body of work. In painting, there are times when I don’t yet know what comes next. Maybe my job in those moments is to keep myself physically and mentally well, and give things time to become clear.

Sometimes painting feels like a conversation with the universe. I think of Gnawa music or voodoo trance: rhythm, repetition, and opening yourself to something you can’t fully explain. In painting, I feel something similar. I make a mark, something comes back, and I respond.

I don’t always know where an image comes from or what it means. My job is to stay present enough to receive it. Through finding a place for things in the painting, I begin to find my own place too. And sometimes, I have to wait before the next thing arrives.

For me, art runs parallel to religion. Both involve searching, paying attention, and opening yourself to something you don’t fully understand.