“I am not a person or artist that arrives easily at convenient descriptions of what I am aiming for. Even the idea of trying to present the totality of a person landscape, or scenario in one image feels presumptuous. Instead, my work represents an attempt to embrace the confusion, absurdity and essentially unknowable nature of places, people and their lives. The closer I get in the treatment of my subjects, the more time I spend with them, and with my impression of them; the more they change. They might become more or less beautiful; more or less ugly; appear suddenly, strangely aggressive or unexpectedly holy; stronger, more pathetic, tragic or heroic out of the blue. The possibilities are limitless really and it’s in this process that the truth, and the beauty  of everyone and everything is found. Not in absolutes but in their opposite. Painting is merely the most effective way I have found of conjuring and containing this effort to understand our shared human experience.”

- Hugo Hamper-Potts