Walking, working or simply being, selves absorbed emerge in layers of line and colour. The palette is messy and the movement of the brush searching and uncertain. Lives are the focus and the paint feels its path towards them. My work speaks of personal worlds, of desire and failure. Awkward and rough, the paint searches to and fro for a sense or touch of people absent and missed, settling here then there, upon uncertainty, disquiet, affection, intimacy. The paint pulses the presence of what’s missing. A review of the work entered ‘In Person’ is made by sketching fast with acrylic. The mood is sad but resolved. One eye is extraordinary, suggesting a tear in which everything is mirrored, distorted and enlarged. Why does this painting - mute and almost impassive - have such power to draw the viewer in? There’s something unbroken, yet with a hint of breakage, a theme that follows through the show. The bold orange triangles of the shoulders suggest she stands by what she says. There’s solidity in such dishevelment. There are only two portraits that look straight at us, this being the most candid. Dr Cherry Smyth, This is Tomorrow, 6 April 2022