15/05/2026
The Protagonist of the Everyday: Why I Paint the Shed
There’s a certain comfort in the familiar. Over the years, my “North Star”—the image I return to in the studio—has changed. It used to be the lily, then the lighthouse. These days, it’s something much closer to home: the wood shed.
What keeps me coming back to it is that it never really stays the same.
In spring and summer, it sits quietly among the flowers, almost softened by everything growing around it. In autumn, it catches that low, warm light and seems to glow. And in winter, it becomes a place of movement and purpose—a hub of activity as wood is chopped and stacked to keep us warm.
The shed holds all of this. It carries the rhythm of the seasons, and the rhythm of our daily life.
Because I know its shape so well, I don’t have to think too much about it when I paint. It gives me a place to begin. From there, everything else can shift—the colour, the brushwork, the feeling of the landscape around it.
Over time, I’ve noticed that what surrounds the shed isn’t always what’s physically there. Things I’ve seen or experienced settle somewhere in the background and find their way into the work later. A recent walk through the botanical gardens, with its curved topiary and sculptural forms, appeared in the painting I just completed, without me planning it. I only recognised it afterwards.
That’s part of the process I trust now—the way the mind holds onto things and releases them when you’re not forcing it.
So while the shed stays familiar, it also becomes a kind of stage. The seasons move through it. Life moves through it. Memory and observation blur slightly at the edges.
It’s not just a building I paint.
It’s something that holds time, rhythm, and a sense of home.
