Chalkboards, Windows and the Sky - Acrylic ink and gesso on poplar ply panel - triptych each panel 110cm x 80cm x 3cm and 2 further paintings at 60cm x 80cm x 3cm. 

Painting commission for the workspaces of Cambridge Quantum Computer reflecting on the process of attempting to uncover and comprehend the secrets of the universe and how this pursuit differs for the computer scientist and the artist.  The giant blackboards on walls throughout the offices are chalked with mathematical workings and ghost remains of past ideas.  A bank of windows looks out over the spires of Cambridge, into the clouds and beyond to the space where the theories of the quantum scientist are mentally situated.  I wanted to reflect on this process of working, erasing, looking at a screen or board, looking beyond, imagining something new, inventing a new theory, looking back at the board, testing, erasing, starting again.  It is reminiscent of the artist’s process, an infinite cycle of looking, wondering, inventing, refining, erasing, starting again.  The paintings took visual cues from chalkboards, windows and the sky and the method of applying paint and rubbing back partially dry layers echoes the physical process of working on chalkboards.  The building layers create intense depth with traces of previous incarnations of the paintings.