Hi Sam, Thank you for showing us around your studio. What are you working on at the moment?

This scene I'm working on is from an old black-and-white photo of two guys on a boat. I have a little bit of a water theme at the moment. There was more stuff on the original image. There was a horse, another boat. But I just thought by focusing in on these two figures, it looks quite tranquil.

A lot of my references are from old photos, stills from newsreels, and then photos I've taken. I like to find old newsreels that they used to play in the cinema before films, pause them and take screenshots. You feel like when you screenshot it, no one else has ever screenshotted that before. I like to put them in Photoshop and change characters around but I don't colourise anything, I'll just make the colours up. In fact, when I take pictures myself, I'll put them in black and white first before I paint from them.

The other ones I’m working on are paintings of friends. I think it's nice to have a few on the go, because then you don't get bored.

Your painting 'Felling of the Sacred Tree' depicting the aftermath of the Sycamore Gap Tree being cut down was recently selected for the RA summer exhibition, how did it feel to receive the news it had been chosen?

I really had no idea if that would get chosen because of the subject matter, I wasn't sure if it would be something they'd be interested in, but I knew it was something I wanted to paint because I kept turning it over in my mind before I painted it and I thought, if I don't just paint it, I'll keep thinking about it, and wondering what it would look like, and then the fact that it got accepted proves it was worth painting it. The question was, how did it feel? Yeah, it was really exciting. And it was validating as well, in that, just because it might not be a straightforward idea to paint, an obvious thing to paint, doesn't mean you shouldn't paint it. It helps me think, I should try and get out of the same safe rhythm all the time. It's better to paint things that you're not sure about.

It was also something that deeply affected & moved a lot of people. I think with your painting being recognised in that way, just shows what a significant event it was, not just for the people of the North, but nationally too.

I really had no idea if that would get chosen because of the subject matter, I wasn't sure if it would be something they'd be interested in, but I knew it was something I wanted to paint because I kept turning it over in my mind before I painted it and I thought, if I don't just paint it, I'll keep thinking about it, and wondering what it would look like, and then the fact that it got accepted proves it was worth painting it. The question was, how did it feel? Yeah, it was really exciting. And it was validating as well, in that, just because it might not be a straightforward idea to paint, an obvious thing to paint, doesn't mean you shouldn't paint it. It helps me think, I should try and get out of the same safe rhythm all the time. It's better to paint things that you're not sure about.

How has your approach to painting changed over time? Is it still evolving now?

My style is definitely evolving, it's slowly progressing and becoming more figurative. I think I'm painting more for myself than I was five years ago. So it's getting more stylised, but I'm always more excited about how my work is going to look in six months than what it is now. I don't really consciously think about how it evolves too much. I'm always excited about the future. I am trying to get looser and more abstract, while still retaining some elements of realism but I just want to make my work more relatable to people and finding ways to make people stop and think about their own lives through the paintings. I don't think that's changed actually since I started painting.

What's inspiring you at the moment?

Visiting art galleries or just seeing little glimpses when you're walking around, or in films or whatever, where it's like, oh, that gesture or that expression, if you distill that into a painting, that would be really nice. I saw a painting in a show in London, by a guy called Gideon Rubin, and it looks like he works with really wide bushes. They're just simple, like studies, and they look so stylish and fashionable. It's quite different to how I work but I guess I like to try and take little aspects of work and sprinkle it into my own.