Scroll down to see close ups of ‘Cul de Sac’ and to read a little about my working process...

Here is a detail of the sky and roof tops. I love observing the comings and goings in the sky, so much takes place which I'm oblivious of, till I stop and look.

The dark bar on the roof is a drawn trace of the shadow of the window frame I was looking through, which fell across my paper as I was working on it. I was fascinated to see how the 'actual' shadow held the disparate elements of the drawing together and the way it built a direct trace of a specific moment in time into the image.

Made looking out of my window at home, the drawing took several weeks to complete. As I was drawing one day, rolls of carpets suddenly started emerging from my neighbour's window. Each roll duly ended up in the courtyard before being carted off. This strange event suddenly animated the courtyard, creating an unexpected link between interior and exterior space. I'd like the drawings I make to contain traces of the many events, and many moments in time, which unfold around me as I draw.

Increasingly, I am enjoying combining several ways of drawing within a single image. For example, the linear marks drawn quickly describing the sun bursting through the clouds as a wood pigeon flew in front of it, above the trunk and branches of a chestnut tree, which I've mainly described using negative space (drawing the buildings behind it and leaving the forms of the trunk and branches as blank paper). I love the way that a form described with negative space seems to suggest the mass of its physical presence, rather than purely describing its visual appearance.

Here’s a reminder of the entire drawing.

Trying to create a palpable, physical experience of space is central to my drawings. Recently it has felt as if I am sculpting (moulding, maybe?) the space in the image as I draw. This means that, although mainly drawn from direct observation, I also work away from the view I am looking at, so that I can manipulate the space in the image more easily. In that way, invention becomes part of the drawing process. For example, the lamp post at the bottom left is repeated, to anchor that corner of space and counteract the strong diagonal pull from bottom left to top right of the drawing. When you stand in front of the drawing, my hope is that your body, as well as your vision, will respond to the space in the image.

‘Cul de Sac' was shown in the Summer Exhibition 2020 at the Royal Academy of Arts in Gallery VIII, which was beautifully curated by David Remfry RA.

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