The sign in the window

I wasn't looking for an exhibition space. I was just walking.

I live in central London, not far from Covent Garden area, and one afternoon I passed Freud Bar and saw a small sign in the window: local artists wanted. I went in, spoke to the bartender, got an email address, and wrote a short message that same evening. A few days later, Sam — the owner — replied. That was it.

What I didn't know at the time was that I was finishing the last paintings of my newest series almost exactly at that moment. The timing felt less like coincidence and more like confirmation — the kind of alignment I've come to trust in my work.

Liminal Reflection: The Architecture of Becoming opens at Freud Bar on 8 April and runs until 10 May.

The exhibition spans two floors of the venue, and the two spaces say very different things — though they come from the same place.

Downstairs in the basement, the work is quieter. Minimal, heavily textured, black and white. These paintings operate like a visual language — symbols and forms that feel close to the crop circles you find in the English countryside. I've been drawn to crop circles for years, not as a curiosity but as a serious idea: that some visual forms speak directly to something in us, bypassing the thinking mind entirely. These paintings work the same way. You don't need to decode them. They work on you whether you intend it or not.

Upstairs, the work opens up into colour. These pieces are more active, more charged. Each one maps a stage of something I've been living through — a growing awareness of energy, of collective awakening, of what it feels like when you stop resisting the current and start moving with it. I don't plan these paintings. I let the process lead. The result is something closer to a diary than a series — except the language is colour, geometry, and texture rather than words.

I've been asked before why I work this way — without a fixed destination in mind. The honest answer is that I trust the work more than I trust my plans for it. The paintings that have meant the most to people are rarely the ones I set out to make.

If you're in London between April and May, I'd love for you to come and spend some time with them. The bar is worth the visit on its own.

Liminal Reflection: The Architecture of Becoming

Freud Bar, 198 Shaftesbury Ave, London WC2H 8JL

8 April – 10 May 2025

Free entry · All works available to collect