Up until 2006 I was a painter, it never occurred to me to do anything else. One day in 2006 the thought occurred ‘I could know how to do this’. There was no point in continuing. I abandoned the piece I was working on.

I felt prohibited from making anything that smacked of ‘knowing how to do it’ which turned out, after about two years of floundering, to mean any kind of painting. Eventually I made Drinking Fountain, the first three dimensional work. There followed works made with all manner of found and repurposed materials. The discovery of three dimensions and of media not found in an art supplies shop gave me a terrific boost.

The period 2006 – 2020 was punctuated by two events and by three books.

The first event in 2009 involved a procession across Hackney Downs carrying work for an exhibition at a friend’s studio. The Hackney Downs project was the focus of my work until about 2012. Some of the later works from the Hackney Downs time made their way into the second event which was the exhibition Conditions in 2018 at Bressay Lighthouse organised by Shetland Arts. Alongside the three rooms of the exhibition was a workshop space. I stayed in Shetland for the two months of the exhibition – at first ‘in residence’ – later on holiday but continuing to draw in various parts of Shetland. Much of the work in the exhibition involved Shetland and Shetland has continued to be a focus until recently.

Words have always had a role in my work – whether within paintings or about paintings. Being knocked off my painting perch in 2006 led me in 2011 to write Being in the Studio with Hackney Downs. It was a sort of retrospective journal trying to make sense of what had happened. The essay in the Conditions catalogue and another in Here (an installation picture book of the exhibition) continued the story.