My commonest single inspiration is pattern.
Patterns, particularly those of textiles, have a long history in both Western and Eastern art as backgrounds or complements to figures. For several years I have used patterns to set off the figure — the body or the face — usually in order to bring it closer to the viewer.

Six years ago I began to make the pattern the subject on its own. I began with Moroccan rugs, at first with the addition of 'still life' objects, experimented with paintings based on tilework and plaster decoration, and went on to juxtapositions of different textile patterns.

Since then I have been looking for sources of pattern in the Scottish landscape. I have based paintings on the shapes which appear in peat as it dries out after digging, and I have moved on to more abstract work using the tones and colours which these studies suggested.

A subsequent series of paintings is based on the dramatically contorted strata of the rocks of the northern tip of the island of Lewis. I have tried to metamorphose these also into works of greater regularity and abstraction.