There’s something ritualistic in stretching a canvas. My paintings are really big - even getting the materials into the studio takes some courage. Once the wooden bars are hammered together, you rip the fabric to size and stretch it round the frame. It’s a bit like skinning a drum. You start in the middle, nailing the fabric to the back of the wood in the sign of the cross until you get to the corners. Stretch it too loose and the fabric sags, too tight and you warp the wood. I know I’ve hit the perfect tension when my knuckles have blistered just before I reach the corners. You can use special pliers to save you from bloodshed, but this feels like cheating.

 

Next you have to prime the canvas. This stops the paint from rotting the fabric - oil paint is corrosive. Wait a few hours and prime it again. Doing it once is a waste of time. The primer makes the fibres of the fabric dig into eachother like claws, tightening their grip around the frame a little more. I check the quality of my work by flicking the canvas and listening to the sound it makes. It should make a slow rumble like a big bass drum. Now it’s ready and you can run, free to paint until it’s finished. Then you start the whole thing again.

 

When I paint, I mix my colours on those leftover strips of canvas - the bits you have to rip off when you’re trimming the fabric to fit the frame. So really I’m making two paintings at once - one made by the conscious mind and one by the subconscious, each one a by-product of the other. Rather annoyingly, I think these things that evolve on their own on those throwaway bits of cloth might be the most interesting part of my practice.. like the real stuff isn’t in what I set out to paint, but in what emerges when my hands are busy with something else... like painting, like life, has its own organic logic — what we plan is only the start of the story, the rest writes itself in the margins.