Commissions
I’m always up for doing a commission as long as you give me plenty of creative freedom, get in touch with me if you have an idea or an occasion in mind and we can work something out.
Here’s a picture of the final, framed piece in situ. We used anti-reflective glass so that the picture would be easy to see at all times of day. Olivia also shared pictures of the room it was set to be hung in, so that I knew what colours would work well.
‘Dear Mother life’s a bugger, kill the canary and let’s have a roast’, acrylic paint and wax crayon on cotton rag paper, 70 x 100cm, 2021
Olivia wanted to use some inheritance money to commission a piece that would celebrate her late grandmother’s life. She shared pictures and stories with me, so that I could get a full sense of the humour, stubbornness and generosity at the heart of her grandmother. We worked closely together to build a composition to capture all of the important elements of her memories: the mountainous landscape of Wales, an ornamental duck that was always filled with Smarties, and her favourite flowers and birds (a lark).
I took this picture of my lovely framer, Nicki, when I went to collect the piece. She said that the work made her feel full of joy, which made me full of joy, because it meant that Olivia would probably feel full of joy, too.
Olivia sent me this picture of the piece from a different angle, I really love seeing how the piece lives alongside her quiet time, and how nicely it interacts with the room around it.
‘Let the Sun shine in’, acrylic paint on stretched cotton canvas, 80 x 100cm, 2021
This piece was commissioned for Genevieve’s 30th as a celebration of her new home and a new (brave) stage in her career, as she starts to make it out on her own as a business owner. She loves my piece ‘Nothing to be done’, and wanted this to feel like it was part of the same series. Gen wanted the piece to make her feel full of positivity whenever she saw it. I feel like the best way to feel positive is to think about the warmth of the sun, so I wanted to bring this inside. We included some important motifs for her: a fan that she has kept with her through every house move, the orchids that she nurtures, and the symbols in the rug mirror the branding of her jewellery brand.
This is one of my commissioned pieces with Peter, one of the lovely framers that I work with. I took this picture after he had finished doing a wonderful job of framing it. You can’t see his face because of his mask, but he is smiling a lot.
‘Nothing to be done’, acrylic paint on handmade cotton rag paper, 60 x 80cm, 2020
Much like most of my commissions, this all started with a blank wall. The client didn’t have a clear idea of what they wanted for the space, so I went for a home visit, to get a feel for the space, their home and the colours that they liked. They use the room that the piece was going to be in as a dressing room, so I wanted the piece to reflect that by having a naked woman lounging around deciding what to wear. The space was pretty monochrome, so I wanted to use the brightest colours I could find… fluorescent orange, fluorescent pink, ultramarine and sunshine yellow.
This is a picture of the final, framed piece hanging in the client’s home. A blank wall no longer. It isn’t an accident that there is a round mirror in the room much like the one in the painting, I very clevery referenced this.
This is pretty much the same picture as the other one but slightly further away so you can get a bit more context of the room that the picture is in.
Here is a picture of one of the paintings I made for a commission in its new home. It is the one with the dog and the mad colours…
‘Belle’, acrylic paint on stretched canvas, 50 x 70cm, 2020
The client approached me with an idea for a Christmas present for his wife. He wanted a portrait of their dog, but wanted the picture to capture their home together too. It was their first home and they had vague plans to move somewhere else, and so he wanted the painting to be a memory of that time and place in their relationship. As this was a present, we had to work together to figure out what colours and composition his wife would like… so he sent me plenty of pictures, of the other artworks they had in the home, plants, and other décor. Thankfully we did a good job and his wife was delighted with the piece. Phew.
In preparation for the painting, I was given the huge honour of going to meet Belle, the star of the work, in person. I did a little photoshoot with her so that I had some good reference pictures for the painting but also just for my enjoyment because she is a stunning angel.
‘The River’ acrylic paint and imitation gold leaf on stretched linen canvas, 2019
The client approached me to create a piece to fit in with their newly decorated home bar. As there weren’t many soft furnishings in the room, it was quite echo-y, so I decided to work on a large, stretched canvas, to catch some of this sound. I know you might be thinking that this piece is a bit of a departure from most of my work, but I couldn’t disagree more. Pretty much the only thing I am interested in with my art is an exploration of colour. I work with bright colours most of the time because they pose the most difficult colour conundrums (how can I put red, green and orange into the same painting without it looking like an actual headache?). With this painting, I wanted to respond to the colours in the room, and was interested in playing with ways of piecing different tones of blue together and still creating a contrast. I was also interested in playing with imitation gold leaf alongside gold pigments, to see how light and reflections interact with a reflective material to produce unexpected colours.
Mural commissioned by Major League Baseball, 2020
Major League Baseball commissioned me to paint this mural for a film they were making to promote their new game: MLB60
