This piece is very much a two-dimensional transcription of the three-dimensional work I had done in school three or four years before, and borrowing a bit heavily from the old masters I'd studied in university (the cloth of honour behind her, for example, is a Renaissance Venetian motif). The meaning of this, hmm: war/peace...geometrics/natural forms: contrasts and ironies. I probably had it all worked out like a puzzle (usually missing a piece or two) which is what I used to do at that time, but which I don't have the mental energy to construct anymore. It's better to just simplify down to one good image, and let the punters figure it out on their own. Ten, fifteen years ago, I couldn't have imagined myself ever saying that.

I might have had in the back of my mind a recollection of my visit to a little known, unfinished church by Brunelleschi (no time to look up the name) in Florence, which is or was habitually closed to tourists. After the Second World War it was used as an administrative centre for distributing benefits to war veterans, and, amazingly, its church windows were filled with stained glass of weapons, bombs, armaments.

This is my largest painting. Over a fifteen year period my work has steadily shrank, as it has slowly dawned on me that I do wish, in theory and in fact, to sell these things and so support myself and my cravings.