Tilly, 2025 Oil and mixed media on panel in antique frame with hand-painted detail, 79 × 70 × 7 cm 
 

On the easel this month is a portrait of my daughter Tilly. The tree of life has been present in this painting for some time, but I have been working more deeply on the patterns in the surround. Rereading what I've written about palampores and Jude this month has changed how I see what I've made. The portrait holds three generations — me painting, Tilly sitting, and Mum, whose deli upstairs was where I first learned to look at textiles. I hadn't consciously set out to bring Mum into the painting, but she is there, in the inheritance of pattern.

The frame is an antique one — most of my small paintings are paired with frames like this. The layers of history in the paint seem to resonate with the worn patina of the frame, each marked by the lives they have passed through. With this painting more than most, that feels right: a frame already carrying its own unknown history, around a portrait holding three known ones.

Some paintings reveal what they are doing only when you stand back from them.