For me, still life has interesting history connotations. I often make colour photocopies of an abstract still life painting, using them to make several small collages. These will show the various elements of the original painting recombined in different relationships to each other, and can become the basis for a series of paintings in oil.In this way, one painting gives birth to many others. I like to think I am conferring a history on them – certainly, it’s the only history I’m ever likely to be able to control!

Here you can see two such series, the green series originating from collages about a random collection of objects I bought in a charity shop, and the blue series from photographs and objects which have personal significance for me – earrings, cufflinks, my mother’s little inbox, my father-in-law’s cigar box. The blue pieces relate  to my own family, reminding me of people dear to me, but in all these still life paintings, the varying relationships and colours echo the secret history of old and well-used objects.