Why Not Paint It Again?

Newsletter - 1 October 2026

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on four new pieces for Into Summer 2026, a group exhibition at Webb’s Wellington Gallery this November.

All four works are now finished, and interestingly, each of them began with something I had made before.

When I started thinking about what I wanted to create for this exhibition, I found myself wondering:

“Why do I need to avoid an earlier work just because I’ve already made it?”

If I still love it, why not paint it again?

So this time, I decided to return to four earlier works and explore them again through the way I work now.

Some of them are from a few years ago, while others are much more recent.

Some have changed quite a lot, while others are very close to the originals.

The colours have changed. The materials and surfaces are different. I’ve adjusted some of the compositions, and in some cases I’ve stayed very close to the original image.

But even when the image is almost the same, I’ve found that I don’t necessarily see it in the same way anymore.

I think this has been one of the most interesting parts of making these four works.

I’ve always been interested in repetition and patterns in nature.

The same kinds of forms appear again and again — in trees, feathers, water and turtles — but they are never exactly the same.

While making these works, I started thinking about repetition in my own practice in a similar way.

This also made me think of Gwen John, who often returned to similar figures and interiors, with small differences emerging through repetition.

It’s not a new idea, of course, but it felt very relevant to what I was thinking about while making these works.

Repeating something doesn’t necessarily mean going backwards.

Even when I begin with the same image or pattern, small differences naturally appear through the colours, materials, surfaces, and simply through the way I see the work now.

Sometimes those small differences can lead somewhere quite different.

These four works will be shown as part of Into Summer 2026 at Webb’s Wellington Gallery this November.

The opening celebration will take place on 21 November 2026, and I’ll share more details and the catalogue once they become available.

I’m very happy to have these four works finished, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of them with you as the exhibition gets closer.

Thank you so much, as always, for taking the time to read my newsletter and for your continued support.

Warm regards,

Yae