Working on this show has been a reunion with old friends and favourites. After a long and hazy separation, characters old and new tentatively and boldly emerge on the canvas, playing out conversations and responses in reaction to the question: How are you?

Their reactions are a bridge between my internal dialogue and the jumbled responses that come out of my mouth when asked how I am. As always, painting gives me the space to express things said and unsaid, and to give freedom to suppressed impulses and desires.

I started out with pile of old National Geographic, Huisgenoot and Scope magazines which I proceeded to chop up. Then I added in some abandoned photos and postcards collected from junk shops and chopped those up too. After that I added some of my own photos and sketches into the mix. Once I had the perfect paper soup I made hundreds of freshly collaged people, ready to be painted. One character will have the legs of 1950’s housewife and the body of a bodybuilder attached to the head of a horse. I had a ball giving new life to people who have been stuck in magazines and boxes for 77 years.

How are you?

Good thanks, and you?