Revisiting Paintings with Fresh Eyes

Over the past little while, I’ve been spending time looking back through some of my recent paintings.

They aren’t old works exactly — many of them were painted earlier this year — but because life and work have been busy, I haven’t really had the space to sit with them properly until now. I’ve been updating the website, sorting through images, adding available pieces, and slowly gathering everything together in one place.

In the process, I’ve found myself seeing the paintings differently.

Not because they have changed, of course, but because I have had a little distance from them.

And honestly, I’ve been delighted by them.

There is something interesting about returning to work after time away. When you are making, you are so close to everything: the decisions, the doubts, the mistakes, the small adjustments, the part you liked, the part you weren’t sure about. It can be hard to see the work clearly.

But with a little space, the feeling changes. I’m noticing the things I was reaching for at the time: simplicity, fewer strokes, more expressive brushwork, and a freer way of playing with colour.

 

That was very much what I was exploring in this group of paintings. I wanted to say more with less. To let a flower, a tablecloth, a vase, or a piece of fruit hold the painting without overworking it. To trust the shape, the colour, the brush mark, and the feeling of the moment.

Looking at them now, I can see that more clearly.

I can also remember each piece.

Not always in a dramatic way, but in the quiet way memory attaches itself to things. I remember what was happening around the time I painted them. The heat of summer. The objects I kept returning to. The flowers and cuttings brought inside. The cloths on the table. The small domestic details that made their way into the work without needing to become something grand.

These familiar objects are so lovely to revisit.

A small cutting from the beach. A vase of flowers. A striped cloth. A table set in soft light. They are ordinary things, but in paint they become a record of attention — a way of saying, this was here, and I noticed it.

That is one of the things I love most about still life and interior painting. The subjects are often simple, but they hold so much. A painting can carry the feeling of a season, a room, a particular day, or a small moment that might otherwise have passed unnoticed.

Looking back through this body of work, each piece feels a little like a memory caught in paint.

I think I sometimes undervalue my own work while I’m making it. I see what I wanted to do, what I could have done differently, or where I might go next. That can be useful in the studio, but it can also make it hard to appreciate what is already there.

Revisiting these paintings has reminded me to look with more kindness.  To see the strength in their simplicity and to notice the freedom in the brushwork.

To recognise that the work was doing exactly what I hoped it might do: capturing small, familiar things with warmth, colour and feeling.

I have moved on to exploring newer ideas now, especially around pattern, repetition and how sketchbook studies can grow into larger paintings. But I can see how much these earlier works have given me. They taught me to simplify, to trust a brushstroke, to let colour lead, and to find meaning in the everyday objects around me.

In that way, they still feel very present.

They belong to the summer in which they were painted, but they also feel like a beginning — a quiet foundation for what is coming next.

And for now, I’ve really enjoyed returning to them.

Revisiting the paintings has felt a little like revisiting the season itself: the warmth, the familiar objects, the slower moments, and the simple pleasure of noticing what was close at hand.

These paintings are now available to view in the collection.