A continuation and deepening of the themes that began to emerge during the first lockdown, Somniflora grew from the same immersion in nature and in the painted natural world that had drawn me back to my studio. But where that earlier work was about finding restoration, this collection moved toward something more intentional — a conscious homage to the painters who shaped not just my practice, but the way I see.

The Dutch Masters and the Renaissance painters I returned to during those quiet months are not simply influences I admire from a distance. They are part of my DNA as an artist — the lens through which I first learned to look at people, at light, at the particular quality of a face that demands to be painted. That instinct is at the heart of how I choose my models even now. When I meet someone and feel compelled to ask them to sit for me, it is often because something in them feels timeless — as though Botticelli, passing them on the street, would have felt exactly the same pull. That sense of continuum, of certain presences echoing across centuries, is a thread I find myself returning to again and again. You can see it beginning here.