From the Studio to Athens

I’m going to exhibit in Athens.. are you coming too?

A painting can change the way we experience a space.

It can bring colour and atmosphere to an interior, evoke a memory or create a feeling that is entirely personal. For me, that connection between the painting, the space it occupies and the person who lives with it is at the heart of my work.

This September, three paintings will travel from my studio to Athens, having been selected for ARTCAN’s stand at the International Art Fair, Project Platforms, Athens at the historic Tobacco Factory.

For me, this is more than another exhibition. It marks an exciting new chapter in my practice and an opportunity to introduce my work to collectors and audiences beyond the UK.

Memory, identity and a sense of place

My paintings explore memory, identity, travel and the journeys that shape us, as well as the relationships we form with people, places and cultures.

Having lived and travelled extensively across different parts of the world, I am fascinated by the way places become part of our identity. A landscape, colour, pattern or atmosphere can stay with us long after we have left - becoming part of our personal memory and shaping how we see somewhere new.

Landscape is often my starting point, but I am not interested in simply depicting a particular location.

Instead, I use abstraction, light, colour and form to explore a sense of place — the feeling of belonging somewhere, discovering somewhere unfamiliar, or carrying elements of different cultures and experiences with us.

Many of my paintings begin with landscapes encountered while travelling or living overseas, particularly views seen from above. Coastlines, fields, waterways and changing skies become simplified into rhythm, colour and form. From this perspective, geographical boundaries become less important and different landscapes begin to share a visual language.

The viewer completes the story …

I want my paintings to leave room for interpretation.

A work might remind you of somewhere you have travelled, a place you once called home, a particular relationship or simply a feeling you recognise. What matters to me is that the painting develops its own meaning for the person who encounters it.

That becomes particularly significant when a painting enters a private collection.

I want my work to have a lasting presence within a home or interior — something that can be lived with and returned to, revealing different details and associations over time as the light, surroundings and your own circumstances change.

From the studio to Athens

The journey from my studio to Athens is therefore about more than exhibiting three paintings. It is about opening the work to new audiences, new perspectives and new conversations, and discovering how paintings rooted in my own experiences of place, memory and culture resonate with people elsewhere.

After many years of exhibiting in the UK and internationally, I’m delighted to be taking this next step with a body of work that feels increasingly assured and distinctly my own.

And I’d love you to come along.

Through my Collector’s Journal, I’ll be sharing the story behind the Athens exhibition - from the studio and preparing the paintings, to the journey, installation, private view and workshops.

It’s an opportunity to see the work in a different context, discover more about the ideas behind it, and follow what happens when paintings leave the studio and begin their next chapter.

From the studio to Athens….