‘Michael’s garden’ is the first image in 2016 to drop out of The Gallery. This is the note about it which accompanied it when exhibited:

 

‘This is another painting which superficially looks a complex mess but it’s actually very simple and figurative (though obviously not realistic). It is what it says on the label; its full title is ‘A corner of Michael’s garden’. The blue slab on the left-hand side is the (white) corner of his house, with lawn, border, shrubs and trees to its right.

I was staying for the umpteenth time in north Norfolk with my long-term tutor and, now, long-time friend, Michael Horn, a real artist: I go to work in his studio, a most stimulating place in which, over the last decade and more, many of my best paintings have been created. This time, he was encouraging me to do two things: look properly (in painter’s terms) and draw accurately. I tried to do both around his lovely garden. This painting is the end product of several sketches and studies, painted and over-painted with respect to the drawings, whose shapes show clearly, but freely in terms of brushwork and colour.

This painting is an important one for me and I regard it as one of my better works. I’m not sure I could dispose of it but then I quite appreciate that, perhaps fortunately, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.’