'Mercurial' — Acrylic on Canvas, Cambridge Envisaged Series

'Mercurial' — Acrylic on Canvas, Cambridge Envisaged Series

'Mercurial' takes its title from the quality of changeability — the way a surface or a mood can shift rapidly and unpredictably. In the context of the Cambridge Envisaged series, it refers to the city's capacity to present different faces to different observers: ancient and modern, formal and informal, fixed and in constant flux.

Acrylic and the Cambridge Series

The painting was made in acrylic on canvas, a medium that suited the particular quality of energy I wanted to bring to this work. Acrylic dries quickly, which encourages a directness of decision-making that is different from the more extended process of oil painting. Marks are committed to more rapidly, and the surface builds up through a succession of decisive gestures rather than through gradual accumulation.

The Cambridge Envisaged series as a whole is concerned with the experience of the city rather than its documentation. 'Mercurial' is perhaps the most explicitly expressive work in the series — a painting that prioritises feeling over description, and that attempts to capture something of the city's restless, quicksilver quality.