"This painting was a revelation, of sorts, to me. I was trying to paint in grisaille (an old technique of working only in tones of grey) but colour kept creeping in, and getting more saturated, until the final image was almost psychedelic. In my mind it’s still a grey image, but a grey made of inter-related, broken colours. I also wanted the pear to be very hard to work out, so it looks alien; almost like a menhir on Mars."

Anthony Springford