New paintings completed recently in London are a continuation of the themes and discoveries that preoccupied the artist during her residency. Each is based on a detail of a fresco by Tiepolo, in Venice as well as other cities. Cantata, 2020, is inspired by a detail of Tiepolo’s Course of the Sun Chariot fresco in the Palazzo Clerici, Milan.

For the artist, working from reproductions provided a shift in focus and intensity – of colour palette especially. She explains, ‘With these, I brought colour back with quite a lot of intensity. I think reproductions idealise the colours to some degree and I have exaggerated it further. These works are about departing from the figurative source and arriving at a more gestural, abstract new place, where marks and colour can stand in for the attitude of the original painting but with more ambiguity and maybe more openness. I made studies first and then worked from the study as much as possible to get more separation from the figuration and focus on the paint and mark making. I think they still retain a sense of illusionary space and some of the feeling of the escapism that Tiepolo’s work has.’