From New Orleans to Margate — Words Inside the Painting

There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles in when you stand in front of a painting you’ve lived with for months — a quiet that holds memory, movement, and the small shifts that shape a life. My piece From New Orleans to Margate is part of MEMENTO AMORIS at The Lido Stores, and this week I wanted to share a small film of the words that sit inside it.

The video is simple just the text, spoken slowly, for anyone who needs a gentler moment in their day. These words were written during a turning point for me: turning forty in New Orleans with my partner, feeling something shift, and realising how deeply Thanet has rooted itself in me. That sense of being held by a place and changed by it runs through the whole painting.

Being part of this show at The Lido Stores feels like a full‑circle moment. The space itself has such a calm, generous energy, and the exhibition brings together artists whose work holds memory, tenderness, and emotional resonance in different ways. You can explore more about the space and the programme here: https://www.thelidostores.com/

The painting blends oil, palo santo, and mixed media a layering of scent, texture, and colour that mirrors the way memories overlap. New Orleans and Margate sit together on the canvas the way they sit together in me: two places that shaped me in different ways, two emotional climates meeting at the shoreline.

If you’re able to visit, the show runs until mid‑March. And if you can’t, I hope this small film offers a moment of stillness wherever you are.

Thank you, as always, for being here for walking with me through these pieces, these places, and these quiet shifts.