Of London, Lately… Past Show

During the period of lockdown an interior landscape has become as important as the inaccessible exterior world. ‘Les Jeux Sont Faits’ translates as ‘the game is in play’ and is called by a croupier before spinning the roulette wheel. ‘Les Jeux Sont Faits’ also has the general meaning that things have reached an irreversible point; you cannot go back once you have begun.

These paintings were made in a time of seismic uncertainty; playing cards often feature in Still Life Vanitas paintings where they represent chance, gambling, luck and danger. The bird paintings are based on pigeons seen massing in Deptford Market and are meant to indicate an anxiety about crowds. In many of the paintings there is an interest in pattern; in fluttering wings and flying cards, perhaps a desire to impose some predictability and order where there is none.

‘Je suis désolé’ explores the relationship between Manet and Berthe Morisot; she was his model, muse, co-artist and probably lover. She disappeared into marriage and domesticity, and was eclipsed.

In the Urban Fox series these bold and beautiful opportunists slink into streets deserted by bankrupt revelers. These images are rapidly made; wet in wet, using techniques that record fleeting night visits. The foxes represent the rise of forces previously suppressed moving into the space left by a collapsing economy; creativity emerging and adapting and perhaps too something darker, fear of the future.