'This series of watercolours on Indian Rag paper was made throughout January’s lockdown, during which I was staying at my Dad’s house, Claypits, in the Suffolk countryside. The paintings contain both a nostalgia for my childhood spent in Suffolk, and a sense of escapism to an imagined version of reality, reflected in the over-saturated colours and dreamlike quality of blended paints applied to pre-wetted paper. 

 

I was recently amazed to learn that British landscape painter John Addyman lived at Claypits in the 1950s. Mainly a watercolour painter, he is renowned for his wonderful sense of colour and apparent casualness masking meticulous care.  I am fascinated by the fact that I’m standing in the same spots, painting the same views as Addyman was years ago, and I have been influenced by his techniques and approach.

 

Painted en plein air from a bench and other spots near the house, these paintings express my appreciation for the Suffolk countryside, both as a link to the past and as a source of inspiration for a rose-tinted version of present reality.’