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Statement about 'The Possibility of an Island', currently on show at the RA Summer Exhibition

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Since 2023, I’ve been developing a series of paintings centered around trees, particularly palm trees. These works explore themes of exoticism, distance, and the concept of the ‘island’. I’m fascinated by the way islands represent both isolation and freedom, how they live in our imagination and popular culture as these remote, unattainable paradises. I read Lord of the Flies when I was around 9 or 10 and it had a big impact on me.

 

The idea for the artwork was first sparked by reading St. Anselm’s argument for the existence of God, and Gaunilo’s famous response involving the idea of a perfect island. What I took away from reading their work was this question of whether something is greater in reality or in the imagination. This idea continues to influence my thinking and my practice. My paintings try to inhabit that space between thought and reality.

 

I started working on THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND in 2023. This painting began with a small collage study. I cut out images of palm trees from magazines and travel books, fragments of distant places, and arranged them into a new composition. I painted the edges of the trees so that only the tree trunks were visible, concealing their original context and softening the sense of place. Using an oil stick, I then worked over the collage with quick, gestural marks to form the tops of the trees. The leaves and branches were merged into singular, expressive masses, suggestive rather than descriptive. I scanned the collage at high resolution and printed it onto canvas, which I then stretched over a custom-built frame. I continued working on the surface with an oil stick, adding new marks and textures that blend with and contrast against the printed imagery. The final piece is a hybrid of digital and manual processes, part painting, part print. There’s a strong tension between the photographic realism of the tree trunks and the loose, abstract energy of the upper forms. This contrast gives the work a kind of dynamic energy, echoing themes of memory, constructed paradise, and the blurred line between real and imagined landscapes.

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'The Possibility of an Island' will be on show at the Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition from 17 June to 17 august 2025.