No. 13 All The Lights… Everywhere, All At Once ( series 2: The Painted Ones )
Through photography, I became interested in art. Through looking at art, I became interested in making digital art and collage. Through making digital art and collage, I became interested in painting.
Painting is not at all convenient! Unlike digital art, you can’t shut a laptop at the end of the day and close the lid on dozens of photography layers. It’s messy, takes up a lot of space and is extremely time consuming. Nevertheless, I couldn’t convince myself not to start, so here I am.
The initial version of this started life as a collage and developed into a multi media piece. This follow up has been created entirely in paint and ink. I think I’ve fallen in love with the freedom of painting.
To see my inspirations for this, see below the image.
Title : No. 13 All The Lights… Everywhere, All At Once
Jan - May 2026, Acrylic paint and acrylic ink on board
Dimensions: 50.8 x 40.64 cm (20 x 16 in)
Edition: Unique
Certificate of authenticity: Yes
Price: £600
(Free personal delivery within the M25 area of London)
Background story and Inspiration
The building is loosely based on One Canada Square or Canary Tower as it’s also known.
I had recently started the Create, Draw, Meet sessions at Poplar Union and went to start a new piece. Looking out of the window, I saw One Canada Square, which I’ve photographed many times in all sorts of light. I hadn’t started painting at that time so I began to create my version of the building in collage, watercolour pencils and watercolour pens. Someone saw what I was doing and remarked that it reminded her of Paul Klee. She had no idea, at that time, that I had been looking closely at Paul Klee paintings and without knowing it, I’m sure they had influenced me more than I could have thought. It seemed to me like a kind of magic, osmosis or serendipity!
That first piece was accepted and shown at the Tower Hamlets Womens’ Spring Open Exhibition at the Brady Arts Centre so when I came to work on my next piece I decided to take the concept a stage further and surround the building with lights. I’ve packed everything in there and it doesn’t matter which each element is seen as. There’s reflections, light play on windows, the sun, the moon, fireworks, lens flare, spotlights, sunshine, moonshine, sunburst effects, chromatic aberrations, bokeh. I’ve been let loose with the paint box and it feels wonderful!
By the way, the painting which further sparked my interest in Paul Klee’s work was Red and White Cupolas as mentioned in the book How Painting Happens (and why it matters) by author Martin Gayford.