Heir Loom 2026

Oil and mixed media on panel in antique frame with hand painted detail 

63 x 53 x 6.5cm The stated size includes the frame (not pictured but to be updated). The Panel size is 38x29cm 

A new series is emerging - paintings about girlhood and inherited pattern. The same interests are at work: pattern as language, pattern as inheritance, pattern as the background we absorb without noticing.

Pattern in my portraits takes my sitter's story as the lead. Their background, the things that are meaningful to them, important events: they all feed into the choice of pattern and symbols that I use.
But in this new series my sitter doesn't exist. She's an amalgamation. I've sourced her from old family photographs, magazine and internet images. I made that choice consciously. With an anonymous sitter I don't have to worry about honouring a real story, and that frees me to follow the idea wherever it goes.
At the heart of the work I'm thinking about my mum, and myself, and growing up in a time and a culture where girls were encouraged to be seen and not heard. The flowers and the pattern become characters. They can be strange, or beautiful, or claustrophobic.
 

You can see other new work here or in the menu headings.