YOU MAKE ME GAY is a project I have been working on for the last year - almost coming full circle in terms of genre as this is what I started doing when I first began to paint. I wanted to portray these people in a classical way, instilling them all with a gravity that reflects the importance of their influence on me - like beacons in the darkness. I started by painting isolated figures in Caravaggio paintings, focusing on characters on the periphery without whom the whole balance of the picture is lost. I became fascinated with the idea of capturing overlooked, marginalised or forgotten figures and decided to paint personal heroes who had informed my sensibility.