FIVE, June, 2026

No one paints sunflowers without thinking of Van Gogh. I saw the National Gallery's Van Gogh exhibition a couple of years ago and got to look closely at the paintings. What struck me: how massive the sunflowers are, the way he outlines the flower shapes and it just works, the sheer amount of paint, almost three dimensional, and that he painted every day, often finishing a painting in a single day.

I love sunflowers and paint them often. This time I wanted scale, and a looking-down angle rather than looking across. It's a corner painting, the striped cloth folding round both sides of the canvas.

Acrylic on Stone Paper, 80 × 110 cm