Foundations depicts my daughter. Interested in composing a snapshot of her childhood, I set about using layers of plain laundry to represent the layers of foundations much like sediment in a jurassic cliff.

It was the first portrait I'd painted in decades so I was using a cheap cotton canvas and basic acrylic paints. I took photos of her books and toys and treasures and composed them around the laundry. It was a useful exercise that created a good portrait for our home but also taught me how much value I place on texture and the ability of a painting to capture light sources in the room it is going to live in. I snapped a photo of it in situ to demonstrate those early forays into portraiture and how familiar an artwork becomes when you live with it.