My recent bodies of work, Organised Chaos and Halcyon Heroes, continue a deeply personal exploration into the emotional connections we form with everyday objects — particularly those rooted in childhood. These paintings are more than representational studies; they act as vessels for memory, nostalgia, and personal history.

I’m fascinated by how people build attachments to objects through experience and sentiment, how a mass-produced toy or a worn fragment of plastic can hold entire narratives. My meticulously detailed oil paintings are still life for the consumer age, where vibrant colours, complex forms, and layered depth encourage viewers to pause, look closer, and lose themselves in the image.

At the heart of my practice is a desire to elevate the overlooked. By painting ordinary objects with precision and care, I aim to shift their context—moving them beyond their functional or nostalgic value to explore broader themes of mass production, consumerism, commodified trends, and the commercialisation of sentimentality.

Growing up in a modest household, I learned to cherish the few possessions I had. This instilled in me a lasting respect for the value of objects and their emotional resonance. My childhood dinosaur collection, which I still own, frequently appears in my work, not just as a visual motif, but as a symbol of enduring memory and imaginative play.

My Organised Chaos series focuses on retro toys – familiar, evocative, and powerfully symbolic. These toys are arranged into tightly composed groupings that appear chaotic at first glance but are in fact carefully curated. I spend time arranging them by size, shape, and colour to create visual rhythm and tension. Overlapping forms, directional lighting, and subtle compositional cues guide the viewer’s eye and build a sense of depth and harmony.

Individually, each object carries its own nostalgic weight; collectively, they evoke themes of childhood wonder, the freedom of creative play, and the tension between simplicity and abundance. For many, these paintings act as portals, transporting them back to a time before screens and schedules, when imagination shaped our reality. For me, they’re a personal archive and a shared cultural language.

The series title Organised Chaos reflects both the visual construction of the work and the psychological nature of modern life, our homes, thoughts, and memories often feel simultaneously cluttered and meticulously held together. These paintings aim to mirror that balance: rich with detail but quiet in intent, visually stimulating but emotionally grounding.

In contrast, the Halcyon Heroes series offers a more stripped-back approach. Each piece focuses on a single object, often an iconic or personally resonant toy, magnified to highlight its presence and cultural weight. These large-scale portraits of toys elevate the ordinary, transforming them from nostalgic keepsakes into enduring symbols. Through careful observation, I study every shift in colour, texture, and the signs of wear; scratches, dents, rust, each a trace of a child’s past interaction and story. These paintings are acts of both celebration and investigation.

I paint exclusively in oils on canvas, using traditional techniques to achieve a hyper-realistic finish. I’m drawn to the discipline of realism, the obsession with light, texture, and form. I take pleasure in transforming familiar objects into images that invite extended looking. Many viewers describe feeling as though they could reach out and pick the objects up, a reaction that, while not my primary goal, speaks to the power of intense observation and craftsmanship.

Alongside broader ideas of nostalgia, material culture, and memory, I also explore more subtle, object-specific narratives. These are often hinted at through titles, encouraging viewers to look deeper and consider new layers of interpretation, whether emotional, playful, or reflective.

Ultimately, I want my work to offer stillness in a fast-moving world. Through familiarity, detail, and emotional resonance, I hope to create moments of escape, inviting viewers to slow down, look closely, and reconnect with forgotten parts of themselves.