Portraits & Observation

Framing available

A woman with her eyes closed and her head tipped back, ringed by sunflowers worked in thick palette-knife strokes. The paint is laid on heavily enough that the flowers read as physical objects on the canvas rather than images of flowers. The most tactile piece in the collection — worth seeing in raking light.

Framing available

A face built from broad palette-knife strokes of white, black and a single slash of red across the cheek. Almost nothing is described literally — the features assemble themselves at viewing distance and fall apart again up close. Confident, graphic, and best given a plain wall.

Framing available

A woman in a pale yellow dress seated in long grass, the whole scene dissolved into soft impressionist light with a single tree anchoring the left of the frame. The wide format and low contrast make it unusually restful. Suits a bedroom, or a long horizontal wall where a busier piece would feel like too much.

Framing available

A collage-style portrait — sunglasses, roses and printed fabric layered flat against a coral ground with no attempt at depth. The most graphic and most modern piece here, closer to editorial illustration than to painting. Works well in a café, a studio, or any room that can take a high-chroma flat colour.

Framing available

An elderly man bent over a cup of tea, and behind him — with no explanation offered — the whole of a star field. The domestic and the cosmic put on the same plane without comment. The idea carries the piece, and it tends to be the one people ask about. Suits a dining room or a café wall where it will be looked at for a while.

Framing available

The companion to Chai Under the Stars, and the warmer of the two: a man in a saffron turban with two cups set out on the table in front of him, one of them plainly for someone who has not arrived. The nebula behind him is painted in reds rather than blues. The second cup is the whole story.