Still Life

The still lifes are where the discipline shows. Fruit and flowers heaped in china, brass coffee pots, striped candles in pewter sticks, stacked books slumped across drapery, a kerosene lantern turned until its glass throws a reflection - these are the studio exercises of a painter learning to make cloth, metal and glass obey. The oils are built with full chiaroscuro and deep folds of red and blue fabric; the pastel and acrylic studies are warmer and looser; the watercolours strip everything back to a single object floating in wash.