This portrait of my friend and fellow artist Sam Weeks was painted live at • nook • gallery as part of my Impromptu series. More than a likeness, it celebrates our friendship, the colours she carries with her, and the joy of finding my creative tribe here in Kings Heath.

Join me at • nook • gallery & studios for Birmingham Open Studios 2025. Four dates in Kings Heath with new portrait work on show and live painting demos both weekends.

Featured in Arts to Hearts Project’s 5 Oil Painters Who Remind Us Why This Medium Will Never Fade, I reflect on why oil painting remains at the heart of my practice - a medium of history, intimacy, and connection that continues to keep stories alive.

A spontaneous portrait of Gosia Weber, co-founder of • nook • gallery, painted live during Meet the Maker and finished in the early hours of the morning. This Studio Journal entry captures the full whirlwind story behind the painting from Parma Violets to wet paint warnings and celebrates creative community, colour, and connection.

On a Friday night in August, I set out with no plan, just a need to paint. What began as a quick self-portrait reference under a swung-around daylight lamp became Drift: a bold, instinctive work mixing greens and violets, painted in one sitting. It’s a piece about switching off, finding flow, and letting the painting lead.

Painted at the edge of summer and the start of change, Emerald City became the final piece in the Wonder Series, a joyful, green-soaked turning point. What began as instinctive colour play unfolded into a quiet reckoning with grief, memory, and healing. A love letter to painting, to my mom and dad, and to everything that turns.

Painted in just over five hours on a September afternoon, It’s a Kind of Magic is a portrait of pure joy. It came at a time when I was finally beginning to reconnect with myself, not just as a painter, but as a person who could feel light again. This piece is full of laughter, memory, and music. It holds my dad, my childhood, Freddie Mercury, and that deep belly-laugh joy that runs through my whole family. It’s instinctive, bold, and alive, and a reminder that even after the darkest times, joy returns. And when it does, it feels like magic.

A painting about surrender. About joy, memory, and everything in between. In this journal post, I reflect on Tomorrow Never Knows… the moment it came to life, the music that shaped it, and what it means to paint for no one but yourself.

Painted in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon, The Thinker captures a moment of stillness, reflection, and emotional clarity. Midway through the Wonder Series, this portrait marked a shift, subtle, tender, and deeply introspective. Woven with memories of grief, personal change, and the echoes of The Sound of Silence, it became not just a painting, but a quiet reckoning.

A bold new solo exhibition by Emma Woolley, The Wonder Series explores softness, wildness, and everything in between. Running 8–31 August at • nook • gallery, with limited edition zines, signed prints, and a sensory opening night.

She looks soft… but she’s full of bite! Painted in a moment of spring reawakening, Parma Violet became the cult classic of my Wonder Series. A swirl of candyfloss colour, instinct, and 90s witch energy, she’s sweet on the surface with a wild alter ego underneath.

A quiet, instinctive portrait created outside of a larger body of work. Rise captures a raw and intimate moment of waking, love, and reflection - painted in a single day with no plan, just presence. A personal exploration of grief, closeness, and what it means to simply rise.

I’m incredibly honoured to share that my painting The Space Between Us Hashtag 05 has been shortlisted for the Women in Art Prize 2025, in the Paula Rego Painting Prize category. As a lifelong admirer of Paula Rego’s powerful, emotive work, this recognition means the world to me - especially for a piece that holds so much personal meaning. This blog post reflects on the painting, the journey behind it, and what this shortlisting truly represents.

Pan was painted on a quiet afternoon in May 2024 - not just a portrait, but a return to self. Each brushstroke carried memory, emotion, and presence. This isn’t simply a face. It’s a story of healing, wonder, and rediscovery in the wake of loss.

Boy in Red Glasses was the first painting I made after a year away from the brush, grieving my mum. This reflection shares how it felt to begin again, and how that quiet moment of painting started what would become The Wonder Series.

Yesterday, I finally got to see Jenny Saville’s The Anatomy of Painting exhibition. I’ve been waiting so long for this… she’s been a huge influence on me for the last 25 years…

Some paintings arrive fully formed in your head. Others sneak up on you. The Pirate was definitely the latter…

Okay, so it might not look like much… but this right here — a single sheet of OSB board — is the start of something I’ve been craving for ages.

Over the past few months, something really special has been quietly unfolding behind the scenes—In Full Flow, a new collective of painters I feel incredibly proud to be part of…

It all begins with an idea.