‘Under the turning skies’ takes it’s title from the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’…the first and oldest recorded flood story written nearly 4000 years ago…there were many more to follow. The title itself demonstrates how a story can be passed on, repackaged and resold to suit a new audience, a new age. I am obsessed by the timeless nature of the story; any story. Storytelling will always, in some way, be a repeat of history. Whilst my work illustrates a number of ancient techniques (grinding gold leaf to gold ink learnt from icon painter Vladimir Bushcov in Russia, making my own kalam paintbrush from squirrel hair and a pigeon feather learnt from miniature painter Heraa Khan in Pakistan) it is a tapestry of many eras.

The characters depicted are real, faces from the ‘here and now’ photographed by me all over the world; from the streets of London and Lahore to the souks of Samarkand and Damascus. The pieces are in a sense an immediate form of reportage, people captured going about their everyday; the routine of life. Yet it is in their ‘everyday’ that we find the timeless; echoes of stories from long ago, forever repeated and adapted, a reflection of humanity itself. My work is a palimpsest between past and present…the practice itself built by the collaborations and experiences I have had with other creatives around the world.