A series of seven large-scale acrylic paintings on canvas, painted November 2020 to February 2021 I began this series of paintings after being inspired by the fantastic illustrations, religious concepts and historical narrative of Hieronymus Bosch and his work ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’. I felt a deep and strange connection to these other-worldly images, not least because the artist would have been creating them during times of equal worry The plague and other pestilences cast fear in the hearts of peasants and noble alike but as Stanley Meisler said in Smithsonian , man’s ultimate future seemed anxious and visons of demons, darkness and hell surround us.

When it came to my re-interpretation of Bosch’s painting, I was looking for an artistic means to escape our current reality – a portal to calmness and sanity or a way to quieten my burning anxiety and worries, that were pervading society and the media. Everywhere was doom and gloom, the relentless news of daily death rates and restriction. The world had become very uncertain, with deep worries about my family and the future, I began my first painting longing to create a soothing image to escape into. I painted in my studio, a freezing church, isolated but with a sound track of Moby “This Wild Darkness “ on repeat.