In early 2020 I decided to stop making collages. The source material involved, the sheer volume of it collected over many years, its myriad associations, had begun to overwhelm me. I wondered what would happen if I restricted myself to drawing. I would still use collage as an entry point, starting each drawing with small pieces of found imagery. As the drawings progressed, I found I needed more scope for revision than the thin paper would allow. So, I resorted to a kind of paper marquetry in order to re-establish the surface. I soon discovered that drawing’s restriction of means provided me with a unique and powerful tool for invention.

I made two sets of drawings during the time that the pandemic became part of daily life: ‘Field Notes’ and ‘Encounters’. I am hesitant to call them my “lockdown work” because being in the studio is a kind of lockdown anyway. But I must admit that the pandemic was a bigger factor than I realised at the time.

March 2022