Since this painting daily commands most of my attention it comes to act as a repository of my energies; not a locked chest, but one that continually leaks to affect or, in viral fashion, to infect other work in progress. Even some innocent portrait may show symptoms. However it is A Humument that always falls first victim to such benign contagion, as can be seen in the most recent of the reworked pages. The book as a whole provides a lifetime diary of tropes and trends, strategies and devices, a house of memory of my visual preoccupations.

The photos of my picture and its crazed-looking creator that have appeared in this account were taken by Alice Wood. The present state of the painting in a slightly wider studio context can also be seen here through the lens of Lord Snowden, as featured on the cover of the forthcoming issue of Apollo.

Humument page 233 (click image to enlarge)

Tom Phillips will talk about his work in conversation with Patrick Wildgust (curator of Shandy Hall) on January 4th at the opening of his forthcoming exhibition at the Williamson Museum and Art Gallery.