My floral paintings are influenced by my interest in Spanish and Italian Baroque painting. I am drawn to the richness of the colour palette and its application with opposing visual elements – light and dark, stillness and movement, emotional intensity versus tenderness, the visceral against the spiritual – all coming together to create images to inspire hope in a higher power. Using the expressiveness of the floral structure as it simultaneously opens out towards the viewer and draws the eye in, its sharp edges and gentle curves echoing the human form, I try to capture the same intense spiritual emotion from Baroque painting.

The major concern in my practice is colour – the deepest darks, the lightest lights, the richest tones – and the movement of light through the picture. The image is built using colour and the unity of opposites: sharp and lost edges, highlight and shadow, warm versus cool, brushwork that is sometimes precise and other times restless. I aim to produce an image that echoes the same intense spirituality as the painting that inspired it.