HOME opens on Tuesday 27 July at Depot II Gallery, Danks Street, Waterloo with drinks from 6 to 8 pm. The show continues until Sunday 8 August. It will be open Tuesday to Saturday 11am-6pm and Sundays 10.30am-3.30pm.

The show was inspired by a quote from Ian McEwan's, The Innocent - “…nothing that ever mattered could ever happen here”. It reminded me of Worcester Park, the sleepy dormitory town where I grew up in the 1960s.

It always felt to me that if you wanted to say to a child, “Your life is going to be very ordinary; expect nothing, aim low and you won’t be disappointed”, then Worcester Park was the perfect place to raise them.

20 minutes on the trains which thundered past the end of our garden twice every hour, took you to Waterloo – gateway to the swinging sophistication that was London. But day to day, life was pretty ordinary and London was a long, long way away.

I left many years ago ago and put a very, very long distance between myself and home. In my mind I quietly blamed Worcester Park for things that never quite worked out, for never being exactly who I wanted to be and for missing out on the chances I never had.

And then one day, I went back to visit. And found it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. And when I spent some time fishing around, I discovered that some incredibly interesting people also had their roots in my hometown – people who could never have become who they became if Worcester Park was as dull as I remembered.

So this year I started painting pictures which took the town as their starting point - referencing Google Earth, railway station maps and the words and faces of those interesting ex-residents.

And that's what I'll be showing in this exhibition - I suppose as something of an apology for bad-mouthing Worcester Park for the past 20 years. Sorry, if you're listening.