What Provence Gave Me
In May, I spent time at the NG Art Residency in Provence, and although I knew it would give me space to paint, I don’t think I fully realised quite how much it would give me space to think.
To step away from home, routine, responsibility and all the familiar noise of everyday life was, in itself, a kind of opening. There was suddenly room — not just physically, but emotionally too. Room to be quiet. Room to listen. Room to ask myself what I was really trying to say through my work.
The studio space was larger than I am used to, and I could feel that changing the way I painted almost immediately. My movements became bigger, freer, less contained. I found myself taking more risks, working more intuitively, allowing marks to happen without overthinking or pulling them back. There was a boldness in the work that felt new, but also strangely familiar — as though it had been waiting for enough space to arrive.
Being in Provence also gave me time for inner reflection. The landscape, the light, the slower rhythm of the days — all of it seemed to invite a deeper kind of looking. Not just at the paintings, but at myself.
I began to understand that the work was not only about colour, movement or composition. It was about becoming. About the chapters we move through, the things we carry, the parts of ourselves we lose, reclaim, soften towards, or finally begin to accept.
That time away became the beginning of a much deeper exploration, one that would go on to shape my new collection, The Making of Her. I don’t want to go too deeply into the collection here, because it deserves its own space, but Provence was where something shifted. It was where I began to see more clearly what I had been painting towards.
What emerged from that time was a stronger, more fearless body of work than I have created before. It pushed me beyond what had become comfortable. It allowed me to experiment, to loosen my grip, to trust the marks, and perhaps most importantly, to lean more fully into myself.
Looking back, I think the residency gave me what I had needed for a long time: space, stillness, and permission.
Permission to paint bigger.
Permission to be braver.
Permission to stop circling the edge of something and finally step into it.
I’d keep this one fairly clean and spacious on the website, maybe with 3–5 images: one studio shot, one Provence landscape/detail, one work-in-progress, and one finished painting from The Making of Her.