Earlier this summer, I spent three months as the artist in residence of St George’s Arts in Esher. I’ve always wanted to do something which combines art with music, and I’d recentlybeen working on paintings of musical instruments and players, so I decided to invite instrumentalists in to play at St George’s. I know quite a lot of amateur quartet players, as I play the violin myself, but even so, I was surprised by how many people are busy playing chamber music in each other’s houses around here. It’s like a secret underground quartet-playing network! As part of my residency, I wanted to highlight how much music-making is going on in our area. 

So each Friday, during my open studio, I had a different group of musicians in, so I could draw from them. This worked incedibly well; the players didn’t have to pose in excruciating positions, and could just get on with their normal practice session. My work has always been quite loose, so the fact that the players were moving didn’t bother me; in fact, I found it made me draw more freely.Visiting public could stay and listen, and some also took part in drawing.

When I began the residency, I had no idea how my work was going to progress. I liked the idea that it was open-ended, and could go in any direction, but at the same time, it was a little nerve-wracking,  producing work in a public situation, and knowing that I had to come up with something new and interesting for my final show there. One surprise was that, as my work has always been primarily about colour, and I titled the residency ‘The Colour of Music’, but by the end of the residency, I found myself working entirely in black and white!

Here’s a picture of me while I was drawing one of the quartets. They played five Mozart quartets, one after the other, with virtually no stopping. There were quite a lot of people watching that day; you can see  some of their knees.