Arkwright House, Clapham Park Estate, Brixton Hill

• Dimensions: 61cm x 61cm
• Media: Acrylic paint on canvas
• Year: 1998-9
• Sold: Yes

This painting began as a still life of a cactus on a windowsill. In time, I painted over the cactus as I became more interested in the comings and goings of people in the neighbourhood heading to the shops on Brixton Hill. The old Caribbean gents had intrigued me since my first teenage trips to Brixton market.

I’d always been interested in faces. Walking through the city, I’ll clock everyone I pass- hairstyles, clothes, mannerisms, gestures and expressions. People intrigue me. I hold gazes, look away when needed and smile when connections are made. Momentary encounters contain so much unspoken possibility. As a kid, I’d soak it up until I had a pen and paper and then let it all go.

I was pleased with this early painting. It had some honesty in it, but the fact that the people in this painting are mostly entirely conscious of the artist/viewer is a reflection of my own feelings of inadequacy at my ability to draw streetlife at street level. These gazes are full of hostility and suspicion at the voyeur peeping behind the cactus. Three years after leaving art college I still didn’t know how to draw in the street.

Another three years or so would pass before I was confident enough to draw at street level and observe and record in a way that allowed both character and narrative into my work, alongside memory. It was a way of working that exposed me to my subject and my audience, and made me question myself and the people and places I was drawn to depict. The people could see me as much as I could see them – real connection could now begin. Putting the cactus to one side was a beginning of sorts.