Marc Provins

My provisional title for this work as it evolves and grows into a set is Box Room. The box room of our Edwardian terrace is my studio/ work-room/ atelier/ study/ office and it's where I'm making these small still lifes, using the diffused daylight from the window. It's actually west facing but this being Manchester it appears more like north as the light is usually travelling through a generous layer of slate grey cloud. I may be wrong but the idea of a box room seems very British and slightly eccentric, too small for a double bed it often ended up as a dumping ground. That was until the invention of the personal computer gave this Victorian idea a new lease of life as now everyone needs a place to store a desk, chair, screen and keyboard. I've been making work about home and the domestic on and off for more than twenty years. I keep coming back to it, an itch that needs scratching again and again. I'm enjoying the process, fiddling, styling, composing, ...

The idea struck me the other day that we go through a form of group therapy at this time of year, which probably sounds very  20th century  California. By this I mean we spend time with our friends and family, we eat and drink together, talking, reflecting on the year, celebrating, remembering, venting, generally making sense of the events of the last twelve months. Then on January 1st we have a fresh start, we can close the old year and open the new untainted one, full of promise and possibilities. This looking back before we move forward helps bring some perspective and allows us to order our priorities, hence the concept of resolutions, a short list of things to make the new year better in some way than the old. I've done a bit of looking back recently. We spent a week over Christmas in a small Cotswold stone cottage in a village walking distance from my childhood home. This provoked quite a profound reaction in me that I wasn't really prepared for. I...