Birds
I taught drawing and painting at HMP Edinburgh 2001 - 2007. there was already a tradition of copying past masters from photographs so in my lunch breaks I would copy paintings so that I would be able to give demonstrations to students on how to tackle Modern classics. The seagull had featured in earlier work as a way of unblocking and morphed into this blob which permeates the work through the years. The shape has taken the form of a helmet in more recent work but I can always return to the bird. everybody knows the bird is the word.