After the storm is an homage to the horse chestnut and celebrates its flamboyance of bloom and in this painting, just one popsicle of blossom becomes a tree to support a selection of worldwide wild animals, all accessed from volunteering at Bristol Zoo. The squirrel monkey, the aye-aye, the black naped fruit dove, the owl butterfly and the kea a parrot indigenous to the mountains of New Zealand each highlight their own exceptional species in a cloak of bloom from the bracts of an equally exotic but more common botanical species. The stick of blossom I picked up after a storm on the Downs in Bristol and where many of these trees are gradually and tragically dying off. The owl butterfly’s illusory eye pattern merges with the stud of the aluminium MGB car bonnet, a very satisfying material on which to paint and dating from the year I was born which travelled with me from Armagh to Bristol not so long ago.