Harbour Cottage View, 2022

A fleet of small boats bob in the harbour, the vista flanked by the stone fisherman’s cottages so typical of the architecture of St. Ives, a jumble of which hugs the curve of the bay to the righthand side of the painting.  The foreground is a line up of objects: a coffee pot, a bowl of oranges and shells –  a play perhaps, on the phrase fruits de mare – a ginger jar, a jug and in the centre, a vase of flowers. The blocks of colour of this vase are almost an abstract painting in their own right, and the flowers include irises, daffodils, sea-pinks and beautiful starlike narcissus, all of which grow in profusion in Cornwall in the spring. This is a bunch of Cornish flowers, souvenirs perhaps of a cliffside walk, or treasures from a garden, the promise of warm weather to come and an end to winter.